The Hollywood Reporter brings some rather bizarre news from the normally quite sensible people over at 20th Century Fox. Just like Universal has "Rogue" for the genre fans and Paramount has "MTV Films" for the aging slackers, Fox will soon create a Teen-Centric division that’ll focus on REALLY separating your 16-year-old from her allowance.
"Fox Filmed Entertainment chairmen Tom Rothman and Jim Gianopulos have appointed Fox Searchlight president Peter Rice to run a new division for teen and young adult audiences intended to tap into the lucrative genre film market.
Rice, who also will continue running Searchlight, the studio’s specialty films unit, has signed a new five-year contract with FFE.
The new division he will head — which has not yet been named — will produce and acquire six to eight films a year in genres including action, thriller, comedy and drama.
The new division also will create new-media content for mobile devices, the Web and emerging technologies.
"Young audiences have their own aesthetic," Rothman said, adding that new media would primarily be used to create marketing opportunities for the division’s films. "Both the movies and the marketing will have a pretty radical aesthetic. We’re going to try to be bold," he said."
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"Bold and radical", eh? Sounds like someone got a little overzealous after the annual bring-your-daughter-to-work day. Personally, I think 20th Century Fox is the very best of all the big studios, but why not just focus on the individual projects instead of creating an ultimately pointless ‘label’? Do high-school kids base their weekend movie selections on the logo screens? "Hey, let’s go see the new Sony Pictures Classics movie!"
