Deadline Hollywood: Bert Bedrosian and Strong Eagle Media ink deal with Anderson Media Corp, Alchemy

By Bert Bedrosian

Anderson Media Corporation CEO Charlie Anderson and creative executive/executive producer Mike Camello are partnering to formulate a new production and distribution company called Charlie Mike Productions. The newly minted establishment already has inked its first multi-picture deal with Strong Eagle Media, the production company started by The Hornet’s Nest producers Christian Tureaud, David Salzberg and Bert Bedrosian.

Under the deal, Charlie Mike Productions has funded and will distribute Strong Eagle Media’s first two military films Citizen Soldier and Danger Close (the second and third of the company’s military trilogy), both of which are in production and slated to be released in 2016. The former is about Sgt. Eran Harrillan, an African-American patriot who leads his Oklahoma National Guard platoon on several dangerous missions in Afghanistan. Danger Close tells the story of Alex Quade, a gutsy female war reporter who embedded with U.S. Special Operations Forces for years in Iraq and Afghanistan. Anderson and Camello serve as executive producers. Alchemy, which recently acquired ANconnect, the former physical distribution arm of Anderson Media Corp., will release both films.


Original article - http://deadline.com/2015/10/als-doc-transfatty-lives-gets-release-date-charlie-mike-productions-established-1201595361/

The Dissolve: Bert Bedrosian Gets Green Light On Next Two Films

By Bert Bedrosian

Last year’s The Hornet’s Nest, a ground-level documentary about Americans in combat in Afghanistan, didn’t do very well in theaters. It did, however, go on to sell more than 200,000 copies within the first six months of its home media release. Our own Andrew Lapin more or less panned the film, saying, “The Hornet’s Nest is exactly the version of the military that the military wants people to see, which means all its earnestness can’t help but feel calculated.” In the process, he drew quite the crowd of angry homophobes to the comment section who felt he wasn’t qualified to write about a film depicting combat because he himself has never actually seen combat, which definitely checks out. Luckily he was swiftly put in his place for being “basically the epitome of a complete dumbass” and hasn’t been seen or heard from again.

We’d like to give a special “thank you” to those angry, homophobic commenters for the page views, and give them a heads-up that, based on the home media success of The Hornet’s Nest, the team behind that film have formed Strong Eagle Media, a production company with the raison d’etre of releasing similar, military-themed movies about people who have definitely seen combat and who are definitely not journalists on the Internet. Per The Hollywood Reporter, The Hornet’s Nest directors Christian Tureaud and David Salzberg are joined by Bert Bedrosian as heads of the company, and will directly oversee its first set of releases. Curiously, former Obama administrator (in the Departments of Defense and Commerce) Wendy Anderson will also work on the company’s films in some capacity.

Up first for Strong Eagle are two Afghanistan-set documentaries, both co-directed by Tureaud and Salzberg: Citizen Soldier and Danger Close. Citizen Soldier uses helmet cameras to give a first-hand telling of the story of Sgt. Eran Harrill, who led his platoon on “dangerous and heroic” missions during deployment. Danger Close, meanwhile, focuses on the work of frontline war reporter Alex Quade, who embedded with the U.S. Special Operations A-Teams.

As it becomes clearer and clearer that people who love watching badass war stuff on their TVs at home will eat up just about anything they can find regardless of pandering or outright propaganda (and then lend their DVDs to their uninterested nephews), it seems more and more likely that movies like these will continue to be churned out. But then again, that is merely the opinion of a lowly Internet journalist who has never even seen combat.


Original article - https://thedissolve.com/news/6133-the-hornets-nest-directors-form-production-company/