Two-year-old Manhattan production company Plum Pictures, which is backed by Los Angeles entrepreneur Reagan Silver, has raised a film production fund to finance films during the next four years.
Plum plans to fully or partially finance at least two films a year budgeted at less than $3 million, it was announced by founding partners Galt Niederhoffer, Daniela Taplin Lundberg and Celine Rattray, all of whom started the firm with $500,000 in seed capital.
The fund will be financed by Hart-Lunsford Pictures, a Kentucky-based film production company owned by Bruce Lunsford and Edward Hart.
Plum plans to finance its own internally developed projects, including screenwriter-director Paul Soter's romantic comedy "Watching the Detectives," which is casting and plans a winter start. Soter, a member of the Broken Lizard comedy troupe, starred in "Super Troopers," "Club Dread" and "The Dukes of Hazzard."
Plum's credits include Michael Showalter's romantic comedy "The Baxter," starring Michelle Williams, Elizabeth Banks, Justin Theroux, Paul Rudd and Peter Dinklage, which IFC Films will release Aug. 26; Steve Buscemi's digitally shot Sundance competition entry "Lonesome Jim," starring Liv Tyler and Casey Affleck; and "Pack Strap Swallow," a documentary about drug mules produced with the Sundance Channel. Plum is prepping the Brian Hecker comedy "Bart Got a Room," starring Danny DeVito, who also will produce.