Anonymous Content, Higher Ground to Adapt James Baldwin Bio — SkimNews
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- Anonymous Content CEO Darren Walker announced a feature film adaptation of James Baldwin, to be produced with the Obamas' Higher Ground, commissioning Man Booker Prize winner Marlon James and Baldwin scholar Nicholas Boggs to write the script based on Boggs' best-selling biography "Baldwin: A Love Story."
- Walker, formerly president of the Ford Foundation and its $17 billion endowment, said Emerson Collective — Anonymous Content's majority owner — will boost the company's balance sheet, enabling a shift away from the "fee-for-hire" model toward co-financing or leading film financing directly.
- Laurene Powell Jobs said founder Steve Golin had "a beautiful vision" but that "entropy set in a bit" after his death seven years ago, followed by COVID and the Hollywood strikes, though the company now has several dozen festival films this season and recent Emmy wins.
- Anonymous Content co-produced Zoe Kazan's upcoming Netflix series "East of Eden" under television head David Levine as Walker described the rebuild as a march toward "version 3.0."
- Jobs and former HBO chief Richard Plepler are joining a reconstituted board under chairman Michael Klein, with Steve Shikya named COO in August following the hires of Liza Burnett Fefferman as chief communications officer and Michael Sinclair as chief legal officer.
Why it matters: Walker said Emerson Collective will give Anonymous Content the capital to co-finance or lead-finance its own films rather than scramble for outside funding — a structural break from the founder-era "fee-for-hire" model that gives the company direct financial stakes in projects ranging from the Baldwin biopic to Netflix's "East of Eden."
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