EXCLUSIVE: Picture Perfect Federation Chairman Patrick Wachsberger, former Co-Chairman of Lionsgate’s Motion Picture Group, stopped by our Zurich Summit studio this past weekend to discuss the progress of his JV with Federation Entertainment, some of the exciting projects he is working on, and the recent challenge of choosing between The Taste Of Things and Anatomy Of A Fall on France’s Oscar selection committee.
Since launching in 2019, Picture Perfect Federation has added outposts in Italy, UK, Germany and Israel.
Wachsberger, who won a Best Picture Oscar for Coda two years ago, tells us he “considered retirement for about 15 minutes” after leaving Lionsgate but explains why Picture Perfect has given him a new lease on life. You can watch the video of our chat above.
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Among high-profile projects coming up for the company are Coda director Sian Heder’s next film, The Impossible Us, and The Department, the English-language TV adaptation of French mega-hit Le Bureau Des Légendes, which has George Clooney aboard to direct.
Wachsberger says of Heder’s next movie: “The script we have is a masterpiece. As soon as the SAG strike is over we’ll be ready to get going”. Backed by Molly Smith’s Black Label, the project is due to shoot next year.
As announced pre-strikes, the team on The Department includes Showtime, Yellowstone producer 101 Studios, MTV Entertainment, The Originals Productions and Clooney and Grant Heslov’s Smokehouse Pictures. Wachsberger tells us: “The idea is to create a franchise around espionage with a number of spinoffs, as Paramount and 101 did for the western genre with Yellowstone. We’re close to agreeing a deal with a showrunner. The project is greenlit, so once the strike is over we’ll move forward.”
LA-based Wachsberger has recently been in France putting together another exciting project, which we can reveal today, a French remake of Jack Arnold’s 1957 U.S. sci-fi film The Incredible Shrinking Man.
The Belgian native and former Summit boss is teaming with La Vie En Rose producer Alain Goldman on the project, which has The Artist Oscar-winner Jean Dujardin attached to star. Dujardin was attached before the strikes.
The original movie, adapted from Richard Matheson’s novel, charted the story of a man who begins to shrink because of exposure to a combination of radiation and insecticide. With medical science powerless to help him, brushes with cats, mouse traps and spiders become a matter of life and death, all while he grapples with a diminishing sense of self.
In the video, Wachsberger describes how the project came together, securing rights from Universal, their director and when they aim to shoot.
Among other projects Wachbsberger is lining up is psychological thriller The Perfect Marriage, which will be directed by Sigal Avin (Losing Alice) from a script by Oscar-nominated scribe William Broyles (Apollo 13 and Cast Away).
Finally, Wachsberger tells us about recently sitting on the selection committee for France’s Best International Film Oscar hopeful. In something of a surprise decision, the committee didn’t go for Palme d’Or winner Anatomy Of A Fall, instead choosing fellow Cannes entry The Taste Of Things.
The veteran sales and production executive tells us he was surprised that the committee only comprised seven people and that the final decision was “tough” but added that ultimately, in his opinion, “the job of the committee is to select the movie with the best chance to win”.