ANGELENO MAGAZINE
THE
RADAR
FILM
FILM “With a new financial
model and film-finance fund,
Michael Cerenzie represents a new
breed of producers that’s changing
the way Hollywood makes movies.”
BY ALEX BEN BLOCK
PHOTOGRAPHY BY BETSY WINCHELL
RAINMAKER: Michael Cerenzie on the Paramount lot.
THE NEW MONEY MEN Ka-ching! Producer Michael Cerenzie and his cash-savvy compatriots recast the way movies get made
When he went to Japan in June, Michael Cerenzie already sported a tattoo
of a mythical dragon, symbolizing strength and power, on his right arm and
chest. When he flew home—after staying two weeks instead of a planned two
days—Cerenzie had a new tattoo, this time of a Japanese deity called King
Taro who travels about on a koi fish (said to bring good fortune). “The boy is
basically a god that fights for good against evil and helps mankind,” explains
Cerenzie, in his office on the Paramount lot.
The trip, says the 37-year-old producer, turned out to be much more
successful than he had dared hope. One meeting with an investor led to
contacts with animation and video-game companies as well as more new
investors. He came home having lassoed half a billion dollars in equity and
loans, which would help launch a greatly expanded version of his company
with producing partner Christine Peters.
Boyishly handsome with spiky black hair and one prominent dimple,
Cerenzie doesn’t look like a typical producer—and he isn’t making movies
the typical way, either. A high school dropout from French-speaking Canada,
he first reinvented himself as a theater producer in New York before turning
to movie production—most notably, on Sidney Lumet’s 2007 thriller, Before
The Devil Knows You’re Dead, which won over critics but didn’t do much at
the box office. That film was financed as part of a multipicture deal Cerenzie
made with Indian entrepreneur Paul Parmar’s Funky Buddha Group. Since
56 Angeleno > AUGUST 2008
then, in a whirlwind of activity, Cerenzie has put dozens more movies into
production and development and has several in pre-production, including
Getting Out, a second film with Lumet.
Hollywood has many kinds of producers. Some are known for
developing scripts; others for being able to oversee physical production of
a movie. Cerenzie—who teamed up last year with Peters (How To Lose A
Guy In Ten Days)—handles some of each task, but his main job is to raise
the funding to pay for the production. This makes him part of a new breed
of independent producers who not only bring projects to the major movie
studios, but also deliver some of the financing for the film. Today, a writer/
producer has almost no chance of making a deal at any of the eight major
studios unless he/she comes in with a) the elusive slam-dunk script, b) boxoffice stars or at least talent attachments that don’t elicit a yawn, or c) some
of the financing, usually around 40 percent. The days when a good indie
producer could lovingly develop a project until it was polished to perfection
and simply take it to a studio are pretty much long gone.
“The studios are looking to mitigate risk, to distribute more than actually
develop and finance,” says Cerenzie. “The ability to finance or cofinance certain
things allows me to be quicker to progress toward production.”
He’s not alone. Former Universal Studios boss Tom Pollock and his partner
in the Montecito Picture Company, director CONTINUED ON PAGE ...
...TO LIVE AND DINE IN LA CONTINUED FROM PAGE 
[TOP 50] The best
way to begin a meal at All’ Angelo is to immediately order a glass of
Lambrusco, an effervescent red wine. “Ah, yes,” your server will reply. “Shall
I bring a plate of prosciutto and salumi as well?” To which you should agree.
After that, dinner can be an extravagant affair, with branzino filleted tableside.
Or, one could just nibble inexpensively on octopus salad and, perhaps, some
pasta. 7166 Melrose Ave., L.A., 323.933.9540, www.allangelo.com.
[TOP 50] Eric Greenspan has been known to raise his voice, so don’t sit near
the kitchen if a dirty mouth (despite the chef’s good humor) offends you. Band
equipment often clutters the bar of The Foundry, so sit outside under the olive
tree, near the fireplace, to enjoy the mustard-glazed pork belly. At least once,
everyone should try the short rib grilled cheese sandwich, made with Taleggio.
7465 Melrose Ave., L.A., 323.651.0915, www.thefoundryonmelrose.com.
[TOP 50] Although La Terza doesn’t pack in the crowds the way Gino Angelini’s
other restaurant, Angelini Osteria, does, this younger, more stylish sibling is,
by far, the better of the two. Sunlight streams through the loft-like, white-onwood dining room at lunchtime. By dinner, the wood-fired rotisserie perfumes
the entire place—even the enclosed sidewalk patio—with the scent of roasting
meats. 8384 W. 3rd St., L.A., 323.782.8384, www.laterzarestaurant.com.
[TOP 50] Count on it always being busy, loud and hectic at Ford’s Filling
Station—the best and truest of the city’s gastropubs. Service can get sloppy,
but when the cracker-thin flatbreads emerge from the wood-burning oven, all
is forgiven. Ben Ford has raised fish and chips to an art form. The bar pours Fat
Tire Ale from the tap and a Trevor Jones Shiraz by the glass. 9531 Culver Blvd.,
Culver City, 310.202.1470, www.fordsfillingstation.net.
[TOP 50] Monique King is the master of big, screaming flavors. At NineThirty,
she stirs a melting pot of Americana: cumin-scented wild salmon with a
chilaquiles-inspired side dish, and orange-glazed quail with sweet-and-sour
pumpkin. The only downside to dining at the W’s rattan-and-coconut-screened
dining hall is the blaring revelry that spills over from the adjacent Whiskey
Blue lounge. 930 Hilgard Ave., L.A., 310.443.8211, www.ninethirtyw.com.
[TOP 50] A longtime veteran of the Westside dining scene, Hans Röckenwagner
now serves breakfast, lunch and dinner at the über-casual 3 Square Café, for
which the proprietor himself built the picnic-style tables and benches. Breakfast
brings German apple pancakes. Lunch promises a grilled cheese and shrimp
sandwich. And for dinner, the chalkboard generally touts about 12 wines on
offer by the bottle or glass, including Torbrek Granache-Shiraz blend that goes
great with a simple grilled steak and onion rings. 1121 Abbot Kinney Blvd.,
Venice, 310.399.6504, www.rockenwagner.com.
[TOP 50] Forgo the plush white sofas and leather wingback chairs and ask
to be seated at Katsuya’s robata grill. Now try to ignore the celebrity sitting
behind you and focus your attention on the buttery crab legs that have just
been handed across the counter. Chef Katsuya Uechi’s first collaboration
with designer Philippe Starck is a gorgeous ode to geishas and sushi and, yes,
celebrity—but the real star here is the grill. 11777 San Vicente Blvd., Brentwood,
310.207.8744, www.sbeent.com/katsuya.
[TOP 50] Discovering Lamill in Silver Lake is a bit like going to the chicken
coop and finding a yellow-crested penguin. Indeed, many in the neighborhood
have decried this coffee boutique/café experiment—with its toile wall mural,
spider-like chandeliers and science-lab coffee performances—as being too
fancy for the Eastside. They’re missing the point. The potato-leek soup with
bacon and clams is awesome—as is the coffee. 1636 Silver Lake Blvd., L.A.,
323.663.4441, www.lamillcoff ee.com. A
166 Angeleno > AUGUST 2008
RADAR FILM CONTINUED FROM PAGE 
Iva n Reit ma n, reaped
$200 million in financing in 2006 through a venture called Cold Spring
Pictures, which raised equity and debt through Merrill Lynch, French bank
Société Général and hedge funds. Cold Springs Pictures got off to a fast start
with the thriller Disturbia, which cost about $20 million to make. It was
released by Paramount in April 2007 and went on to gross a healthy $117
million worldwide. Two other ventures involve their own domestic movie
distribution. In fall 2006, former MGM vice chair Chris McGurk took over
as CEO of Overture Films, financed to the tune of about $500 million by
premium cable network Starz to initially make eight to 12 pics at a budget
of no more than $30 million each, while Summit Entertainment LLC, corun by former Paramount vice chair Rob Friedman, accessed more than $1
billion in financing through Merrill Lynch last year. (Summit has helped to
finance such films as Babel and Mr. and Mrs. Smith.)
Over the years, there have been waves of what Hollywood insiders call
“dumb money”—i.e., financiers who are attracted by the glamour of movies
but ignore the high risk of such an investment. Recently, the business has been
in a sort of outside-funding frenzy. The last wave was money from Wall Street
hedge funds, whose managers thought they had found a way to make returns
more predictable. Instead of investing in a single movie, they would put up
funds for part of the cost of a whole film slate, so if one fails, there may still be
profits from others in the group.
The hedge-fund money—which financed such films as War of the Worlds
and 300 and turned Relativity Media CEO Ryan Kavanaugh (the venture
capitalist behind many of the deals) into a media star—was particularly
attractive to the major studios. “The studios could get their money but not
have to give up any rights,” says Seven Arts Pictures chairman Peter Hoffman,
who has been involved in financing numerous movies. “These deals were sold
on models of what the returns were. Nobody believes any of those returns
have happened, so when the hedge funds don’t get those returns, obviously
they take another look and go on.”
More recently, in the wake of tighter bank credit, hedge-fund money
coming into Hollywood has slowed to a trickle. “They have pulled in their
horns on this,” says veteran New York-based stock-market analyst Harold
Vogel. “Many of them are feeling a little bit burned.”
That’s why producers like Cerenzie have had to follow the money elsewhere.
“The financing model is like that book, Who Moved My Cheese?” says Peters.
“Everybody picks over the crumbs, but there is another pile somewhere. It’s a
matter of finding it, and Michael has that knack.”
It was his search for investors that led him to Japan. Cerenzie and
Peters have specialized in making deals with Japanese comic book and
video game companies, acquiring rights to graphic novels as well as
remake rights to hit Asian movies. One of his main backers is Fulcrum, a
Chicago-based venture fi rm.
Not everyone is convinced. Although he has produced pictures and has a
huge number of projects pending, Cerenzie has yet to have a signature hit. “I
like Michael very much,” says a veteran Hollywood agent. “I think deep down
he is a good guy, but he has had, like, 18 lives. He’s been through more jobs
than I have underwear. Always a new investor, a new person. The latest flavor
of the month is Christine Peters.”
But Cerenzie—who spent six years consciously ridding himself of
his French-Canadian accent—is nothing if not dogged. “The landscape
changes daily,” he says. “What you see today are producers who have been
at it for 20, 30, 40 years, who fi nd themselves in a place where they don’t
understand what to do anymore. I sit with these guys, and they say, ‘What
are you talking about, Michael?’”
“They ask me, ‘Where did you go, Wharton?’” he adds with a big laugh.
“It’s really just in the doing… There are creative things that we’ve always
known producers do. Now we have to bundle those with the other side, the
financial. That’s the only way to survive.” A
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