April. 2009 -"The RED ROBIN Takes Flight," Featured in The Hollywood Interview

By Alan Kline

Modern Primitives Films has announced the second feature film by writer-director Michael Z. Wechsler, entitled The Red Robin. Pitched as a blend of The Celebration and The Manchurian Candidate, the plot focuses on a family reunion which goes very awry when the youngest son accuses his ailing father, a famed psychiatrist, of using his own adopted children as guinea pigs for psychological experiments for the CIA.

The cast includes Claire Forlani (Meet Joe Black), Hill Harper ("CSI: N.Y.", Get on the Bus ) and Roger Guenveur Smith (American Gangster). Jonathan Sanger (The Producers, The Elephant Man) is on board as executive producer.

Wechsler has directed series for the BBC and Bravo and previously helmed the feature film Slaves of Hollywood, which also starred Harper. Slaves of Hollywood was a selection at 35 international film festivals and was awarded “Best Feature” at the Rhode Island Film Festival. He has sold screenplays to Spike TV, MTV Networks, and Village Roadshow Productions. “The Last Date,” an internet comedy series about the worst dates of all time, and created by Wechsler, has received over 17 million views on YouTube, making it one of the most viewed web series in history.

http://thehollywoodinterview.blogspot.com/2009/04/red-robin-takes-flight.html

July. 2008 -- JONATHAN SANGER, ACADEMY AWARD WINNING PRODUCER, SIGNS TO EXECUTIVE PRODUCE FOR "THE RED ROBIN"

Jonathan’s most recent released film as a producer was THE PRODUCERS –THE MUSICAL (based on the Mel Brooks Broadway musical), which completed principal photography in May 2005, for Universal Pictures (US) and Sony Pictures (foreign territories). It starred the original cast – Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick, plus Uma Thurman and Will Ferrell, and was released in the U.S. Christmas 2005.

Jonathan’s films have received a total of 3 Academy Awards, 21 Academy Award nominations, the British Academy Award and the French Cesar (their equivalent). In 1978, Jonathan made his solo debut as a producer by interesting Mel Brooks’ new production company, Brooksfilms, Ltd., in a small film to be directed by David Lynch in England. THE ELEPHANT MAN, an emotionally wrenching story photographed in black and white and starring John Hurt and Anthony Hopkins, made a strong impact on critics and audiences alike, and was rewarded with eight Academy Award nominations in 1980 including Best Picture, as well as, the British Academy Award for Best Motion Picture and the French Cesar Award. Jonathan Sanger’s next project as producer was the equally passionate story of actress Frances Farmer. FRANCES, starring Jessica Lange, Kim Stanley and Sam Shepard, resulted in two Oscar nominations, for Lange as Best Actress and Stanley as Best Supporting Actress.

In 1985, he made his directorial debut with CODE NAME: EMERALD, a World War II spy drama filmed in Paris for NBC’s feature film division starring Ed Harris, Max Von Sydow and Eric Stoltz. That same year, Jonathan Sanger produced THE DOCTORS AND THE DEVILS, a 20th Century Fox film starring Jonathan Price, Timothy Dalton and Twiggy. In 1986, he executive produced FLIGHT OF THE NAVIGATOR for Walt Disney Productions. The film received the Best Picture Award from the Academy of Family Films and Television.

In 1987, Sanger formed Chanticleer Films and created The Discovery Program. This program allowed industry professionals opportunities to cross over into directing. Forty-two short films were produced, including the Academy Award winning and internationally acclaimed RAY’S MALE HETEROSEXUAL DANCE HALL as well as the 1992 Academy Award winner, SESSION MAN. Additionally, Chanticleer received seven more Academy Award nominations for the program, and all the Discovery Program shorts have won awards at international film festivals. The Discovery Program also helped open up the cable and foreign television markets for short films. Discovery Program films have aired on PBS and currently can be seen on Showtime as well as many international markets. Jonathan Sanger has directed more than fifteen episodic television shows, including TWIN PEAKS, WISEGUY, and L.A. LAW. He also wrote and directed the short film entitled PEACEMAKER with Lucas Haas for PBS’ American Playhouse, which won the Houston International Film Festival’s First Prize for Best Short Subject in 1989.

Sanger’s first television movie was CBS’s CHILDREN OF THE BRIDE starring Rue McClanahan, Patrick Duffy and Kristy McNichol. From 1991 to 1993, Jonathan Sanger directed three more television movies: NBC’s CHANCE OF A LIFETIME, starring Betty White and Leslie Nielsen, NBC’s JUST MY IMAGINATION, starring Jean Smart and Tom Wopat and ABC’s OBSESSED starring Shannon Doherty and William Devane. He also Executive Produced LUSH LIFE, a movie for Showtime starring Jeff Goldblum and Forest Whitaker and directed DOWN CAME A BLACKBIRD, starring Laura Dern, Raul Julia, and Vanessa Redgrave for Showtime Networks, which was nominated for three Cable Ace Awards. During the winter and spring of 1996 Jonathan Sanger produced MR. AND MRS. SMITH, a television pilot, for Warner Brothers and CBS. Immediately following, Jonathan was hired by Tom Cruise and Paula Wagner (C/W Productions) to Executive Produce the Warner Brothers feature, WITHOUT LIMITS, starring Billy Crudup and Donald Sutherland, written and directed by Robert Towne. Subsequently, Jonathan joined C/W Productions where he supervised all of their productions through 2003 including SUSPECT ZERO and VANILLA SKY, starring Tom Cruise and Penelope Cruz, written and directed by Cameron Crowe. In 2000, Jonathan produced (with Ed Elbert) his first large format ("Imax") film, 'NSYNC, BIGGER THAN LIVE, a concert film of America's hottest pop music group.

Most recently Jonathan Executive Produced PARAISO TRAVEL, a new groundbreaking film directed by Colombian filmmaker, Simon Brand (to be released in 2008). Also in 2007, he Produced 100 FEET, a ghost/horror thriller written and directed by Eric Red and starring Famke Janssen. (Also to be released in 2008). Both were made under the banner of Jonathan’s new production company Grand Illusions Entertainment based at Raleigh Studios in Hollywood.

Jonathan has also been a speaker and panelist at various film conferences most recently the 2006 Strategic Research Institute’s Film Finance and Distribution Summit.

Jonathan received a Bachelor of Arts and Masters in Communications at the University of Pennsylvania. He spent three years in the Peace Corps in South America and speaks fluent Spanish. He is married to Carla Sanger, founder and head of “LA’s BEST”, the nation’s largest after-school program, and has two sons. They live in Los Angeles.

October. 2007 --CLAIRE FORLANI, STAR OF "THE MEDALLION" AND "MEET  JOE BLACK" ATTACHED TO PLAY JULIE SHELLNER IN "THE RED ROBIN"

Claire Forlani has joined the cast and is attached to play Julie Shellner in Modern Primitives Films' psycho-drama, “The Red Robin.” Claire Forlani is a stunning beauty, and the London native, who moved with her family to Northern California just shy of her 21st birthday, has had a quick rise up the pecking order in Hollywood. Forlani made eight films in four years before being chosen for the plum female lead opposite Brad Pitt and Anthony Hopkins in "Meet Joe Black" (1998). Her first role of note in a Hollywood film came in 1994's "Police Academy 7: Mission to Moscow" in which she played an interpreter for the visiting cops. She went on to play Brandi, the girlfriend to Jeremy London who ditches plans to travel with him in order to appear on a TV dating show in Kevin Smith's uneven "Mallrats" (1995) and had a small but memorable role as Sean Connery's angry daughter in "The Rock" (1996). Julian Schnabel cast the rising star as the waitress-girlfriend of the titular artist in his biopic "Basquiat" (1996) and she subsequently offered a strong turn as the wrist-slashing girlfriend of beat poet Neal Cassady in "The Last Time I Committed Suicide" (1997). The busy actress also co-starred with Rob Morrow and Jake Weber in the romantic drama "Into My Heart/Elements" (1998).

After a small but memorable role in "Mystery Men" (1999), she teamed with Freddie Prinze Jr. for the romantic comedy "Boys and Girls" (2000) and went blonde to co-star in the drama "Anti-Trust" (2001). Forlani toiled in smaller projects for a while, resurfacing in the Polish brothers' art house hit "Northfork" (2003) as one of the townspeople who are about to see their hometown flooded by the arrival of a hydroelectric dam. The actress also made for a comely sidekick/love interest for Jackie Chan in the English language Hong Kong actioner "The Medallion" (2003), and played the wife of iconic golf champion Bobby Jones (Jim Caviezel) in "Bobby Jones, Stroke of Genius" (2004). She next appeared in the brutally violent sports drama, “Green Street Hooligans” (2005), playing the sister of an expelled Harvard student (Elijah Woods) who flees to her home in England and is introduced to the underground world of football hooliganism by her brother-in-law (Charlie Hunnam).

October 9 2007 -- SPIKE LEE REGULAR, ROGER GUENVEUR SMITH, SIGNS ON TO PLAY LEONARD IN “THE RED ROBIN” 

Roger Guenveur Smith, star of both the silver screen and stage, has attached and signed on to play Leonard Shellner in the Modern Primitives Films psycho-drama, “The Red Robin.” Roger is an actor, writer, and director whose work has been distinguished with the Obie, Peabody, Audelco, Bessie, Helen Hayes, Barrymore, and NAACP Image Awards. He has served as Artist in Residence at the University of California, as NEA/TCG Playwright in Residence at the Mark Taper Forum, and has received an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from the University of Charleston
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For the international stage, he has created and performed A Huey P. Newton Story, Frederick Douglass Now, Christopher Columbus 1992, Inside the Creole Mafia, Iceland, Two Fires, Blood and Brains, and In Honor of Jean-Michel Basquiat.

Among Roger's many collaborations with director Spike Lee include Malcolm X, Summer of Sam, the telefilm version of A Huey P. Newton Story, and his improvised creation of the stuttering hero Smiley for the Oscar-nominated Do The Right Thing. His eclectic range of screen credits also includes King of New York, Deep Cover, Eve's Bayou, All About the Benjamins, the telefilms Hamlet and The Color of Courage, and the innovative HBO series Oz and  K Street . Currently, he is starring in the upcoming Ridley Scott Directed/Russell Crowe crime pic, “American Gangsters”

“Smith's meticulously researched solo performance illuminates ˇ˝ with laser-like precision. ”
- Los Angeles Times

“So masterful is he that by the end of his show, one can easily forget that one is watching an actor on stage.  Both intellectually stimulating and emotionally resonant, it suffers none of the self-indulgence that usually undermines the format. It is a bravura theater piece. ”
- LA Village Voice

“He sends a chill down your spine. ”
- San Francisco Examiner

“Without a doubt one of the best and most urgently important productions to hit stages in 2006. ”
- Los Angeles Alternative

“It is a performance that pairs superb theatrical artifice with genuinely harrowing emotional realism.”
- New York Times

July. 2007 -- CSI STAR HILL HARPER SIGNS ON FOR INDIE THRILLER "THE RED ROBIN"

Hill Harper, star of CSI NY and Spike Lee films "He Got Game" and "Get on the Bus" has signed on to play Harry Shellner in the upcoming psychological thriller/family drama, "The Red Robin".

Hill Harper, an accomplished film, television and stage actor is cast in the role of Harry Shellner. Hill Harper currently stars in the hit CBS drama series, "CSI: NY," as Dr. Sheldon Hawkes, the reclusive coroner who walked away from a promising surgical career after the traumatic loss of two patients. Prior to "CSI: NY", Hill Harper co-starred as an ambitious undercover FBI operative on the CBS series "The Handler" alongside Emmy Award nominee Joe Pantoliano. The role earned Hill Harper a 2004 Golden Satellite Award nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series. Hill Harper has also been recognized by the NAACP Image Awards with a nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in the CBS series, "City of Angels".

Hill Harper received critical acclaim for his performance in the independent film, "The Visit". In "The Visit," Hill Harper plays an HIV positive man who is sentenced to death for a crime that he did not commit. Hill Harper's performance, which Daily Variety called "riveting," earned him a Best Actor nomination by the Independent Spirit Awards.

Hill Harper's recent film roles include "Lackawanna Blues", "Love, Sex and Eating the Bones", "Loving Jezebel", "The Nephew", "The Skulls", "In Too Deep", "Beloved", "Hav' Plenty", and Spike Lee's "He Got Game" and "Get on the Bus".