Jetpack Moves Into Film With Titles From Henson Alum’s Shingle (EXCLUSIVE)
By Stewart Clarke
LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – Kids’ content firm Jetpack Distribution has moved into feature film, snagging rights to a package of family movies from Perplexia, a U.K.-based shingle that counts former Jim Henson Television president Angus Fletcher as its co-founder.
The deal covers international rights to four films from Perplexia, which was founded by Fletcher and Ronald Henry, who created South African motion-capture studio The Flying Circus.
The pictures include “A Horse Called Wish,” which follows a teenager who lands a position as a stable hand at a well-to-do stable and which stars Antony Coleman (“Blood Diamond”). Another title is “The House on Seahorse Bay,” about a family that inherits a rundown beach house on a paradise island, with Waldemar Schultz (“The Kissing Booth”).
Jetpack Distribution was set up by former Disney U.K. programming executive Dominic Gardiner with French producer Samka. It sells shows including “Talking Tom & Friends” and “Dennis and Gnasher Unleashed.” It will launch the Perplexia films at the Kidscreen confab in February.
“We are delighted to be making a foray into movies,” Gardiner said. “The global market and demand for family films has increased in recent years and there are some great opportunities. The movies are high-quality dramas set in exotic locations with engaging storylines.”
The slate Jetpack will present is rounded out by “Camp Getaway,” an adventure comedy about a group of spoiled teenage girls who go to a summer camp on a jungle island, and “Inspector Sunshine,” about a teenage boy-turned-detective. All of the pictures were shot in Mauritius and made by Perplexia Pictures alongside South Africa- and Mauritius-based Two Oceans Productions.
Perplexia plans to announce another quartet of family movies later this year.
“We are striving to build a creative business around a theater company model, comprised of producers, writers and directors united by skill, friendship and the desire to tell terrific stories on film for a family audience,” Fletcher and Henry said. “As such, Dominic and his colleagues from Jetpack fit perfectly with this approach.”
