Almost three decades after its launch, Morgan Creek Productions is changing its name to Morgan Creek Entertainment Group as it is making a big push across television, features and digital. The company is looking to exploit across multiple platforms its library of movie titles, including Ace Ventura, Major League, Young Guns, Dead Ringers, Diabolique, Pacific Heights and Clive Barker’s Nightbreed.
Morgan Creek, founded in 1988 by James G. Robinson and Joe Roth and built by Baltimore-based entrepreneur Robinson, has a library consisting of 60-plus feature titles, including 13 movies that debuted number one at the box office. “Morgan Creek’s globally recognized brand and premium titles are an ideal fit for the extraordinary creative revolution taking place in the television and digital worlds today, ”said MCEG President David Robinson, son of James Robinson.
The renewed effort to mine the library actually started five years ago with The Exorcist, a title Morgan had acquired from Warner Bros. awhile back. It was rebooted as a TV series, which eventually landed at Fox and got on the air. The series, which has been a modest linear ratings performer but has earned strong reviews, is now in its second season.
The process has now accelerated, with a number of remakes –mostly for TV — in various stages of development. For instance, talks are underway with a streaming service about a Young Guns movie and TV series. There also are discussions with a showrunner for a Dead Ringers series reboot.
With the Ace Ventura franchise, “we wanted to do a mainstream theatrical production relaunch,” Robinson said, stressing that the idea is not to do a straight remake but a new movie in the spirit of the original, part of Morgan Creek’s strategy to honor its library properties with the new takes without undercutting them. “Because it’s episodic in nature, about a pet detective, it also lends itself to a traditional single-camera series franchise.”
In addition to TV/digital and film, MCEG is eyeing a range of ancillary exploitation opportunities for its library, including short-form content, graphic novels, live productions and all gaming platforms.
