May 21, 2024

AGC International has closed major territory sales here in Cannes on Eden, Ron Howard’s all-star survival thriller and potential awards season contender which is tipped to land a Venice world premiere slot.

May 19, 2024

EXCLUSIVE: One of the market’s biggest-budget projects, the Will Smith action-crime thriller Sugar Bandits, has sealed multi-million dollar deals across the world for AGC ahead of a planned September start date.

May 17, 2024

AGC Intl., the international sales arm of Stuart Ford’s AGC Studios, is launching sales in Cannes on director Matt Tyrnauer’s documentary feature “Nobu,” about world renowned chef and hotelier Nobu Matsuhisa.

May 16, 2024

EXCLUSIVE: Vertical has acquired U.S. rights from AGC Studios to The Order, a dramatic thriller directed by Australia’s Justin Kurzel (Macbeth), on which we were first to report. Starring Jude Law (Firebrand), Nicholas Hoult (X-Men franchise), Tye Sheridan (The Card Counter), Jurnee Smollett (Birds of Prey) and more, the film will will have an exclusive release in theaters nationwide later this year.

May 14, 2024

From production pipelines to pay-1 deals to changing streamer strategies, FilmNation CEO Glen Basner, AGC Studios chairman Stuart Ford and partner and head of UTA Independent Film Group Rena Ronson speak ahead of Cannes.

May 14, 2024

A first-look at Pierce Brosnan and Amir El-Masry in sports drama Giant has been unveiled, with AGC Studios selling the title.

Production is underway in Leeds on the Rowan Athale-directed feature, with Mark Lane of Tea Shop Productions producing alongside Kevin Sampson of White Star Productions out of the UK, and Stuart Ford of the US’s AGC Studios.

May 13, 2024

EXCLUSIVE: On the eve of the Cannes market, Westbrook Studios and AGC Studios have set Italian filmmaker Stefano Sollima, known for directing Without Remorse, Sicario: Day of the Soldado and hit series Gomorrah, to helm big-budget action-thriller Sugar Bandits.

Based on the screenplay and novel Devils In Exile by Chuck Hogan (The Town), Oscar winner Will Smith (Bad Boys) will play a former special forces soldier who runs an elite vigilante squad working to wipe out the drug trade in Boston. Additional casting continues.

May 10, 2024

AGC International has acquired sales rights to Menace, the latest horror from Image Nation Abu Dhabi and Spooky Pictures following collaborations on Late Night With The Devil and Watcher.

Directed by Randall Okita, Menace stars Isabel May a student who is sent to live with her aunt and uncle in a small down after suffering a psychotic breakdown.

April 14, 2024

Pierce Brosnan and Amir El-Masry have signed on to star in the sports drama Giant from AGC Studios about the life of British-Yemeni boxer Prince Naseem “Naz” Hamed and his rags-to-riches ascent to a world championship under the tutelage of his Irish-born boxing trainer Brendan Ingle.

March 18, 2024

Diaz has re-upped at Stuart Ford's production and distribution outfit, signing a multi-year contract and taking a seat on the company board.

February 16, 2024

Variety is premiering the trailer (below) for feature documentary “Transition,” which follows Australian filmmaker Jordan Bryon, a trans man, as he embeds with a Taliban unit as they retake control of Afghanistan.

The film, directed by Monica Villamizar and Bryon, will be released in the U.S. on March 26 by Gravitas Ventures. The film is available now for pre-order on Apple. AGC International is selling it at the European Film Market this week.

February 14, 2024

AGC Studios and Meridian Pictures has sold U.S. and Canada as well as Asia pay TV rights for the Brad Anderson-directed thriller “The Silent Hour,” starring “Suicide Squad’s” Joel Kinnaman, “1917’s” Mark Strong, “New Amsterdam’s” Sandra Mae Frank and “8 Mile’s” Mekhi Phifer, to the newly revitalized Paramount label Republic Pictures.

Februart 14, 2024

Michelle Yeoh is set to star in Melanie Laurent’s action thriller The Mother with AGC International launching sales at EFM.

Basil Iwanyk and Erica Lee will produce through Thunder Road (John Wick franchise) alongside Arthur Sarkissian and John Schramm, with Stuart Ford serving as executive producer for AGC Studios alongside 30West, which is financing the project.

February 14, 2024

Will Smith has lined up another hot title to his list of upcoming projects, having signed up to lead the cast of high-octane action thriller “Sugar Bandits.”

AGC International and CAA Media Finance represent the film’s worldwide distribution rights and will introduce the film to buyers at the upcoming EFM.

February 14, 2024

EXCLUSIVE: Screen icon Sylvester Stallone is set to return to the wintry streets of Philadelphia in The Epiphany.

The movie, which is being launched at EFM this week by AGC Studios, is about a hard-nosed, soon-to-retire police detective (Stallone) who must team up with a younger cop and former priest to stop a serial killer on a murderous crusade through the streets of Philadelphia.

February 8, 2024

Kit Williamson is turning Jason Henderson’s Alex Van Helsing novel trilogy into a TV series.

AGC Television is developing a series based on the books for its kids and family slate, with Kit Williamson (Eastsiders) adapting the novels for TV. AGC’s Lourdes Diaz, Aghi Koh and Stuart Ford will executive produce.

February 1, 2024

AGC Television is adapting an R.V. Bowman young adult novel trilogy into a live-action family series. Hook’s Daughter: The Pirate Princess Chronicles will be created from the book of the same name, with Thor Freudenthal (Words on A Bathroom Wall, Carnival Row) is attached to direct and Lucy Brown (Bride or Groom) is adapting the fantasy adventure trilogy.

AGC’s Chief Creative Officer Lourdes Diaz, YA division head Aghi Koh and CEO Stuart Ford will executive produce.

December 20, 2023

EXCLUSIVE: Vertical has snapped up U.S. rights to AGC Studios’ Poolman, the absurdist comedy caper marking the directorial debut of Chris Pine (Star Trek franchise), for release in theaters in 2024.

December 19, 2023

Those who made the cut this year excelled during a challenging time for showbiz, which makes their stature all the more impressive.

A pair of strikes paralyzed showbiz for much of the year, bringing film and TV production to a screeching halt and challenging management at all levels of the industry to question their most basic assumptions about what it takes to succeed.

That’s why this year’s Variety500 feels extra special. The folks who’ve made it onto this list deserve a big round of applause. They’ve managed to stand out and excel in their roles during a time when it’s increasingly challenging to differentiate oneself.

AGC Chairman & CEO Stuart Ford included.

December 7, 2023

Ron Howard has added to the cast of his feature, which is currently in production in Australia, with a small unit also filming in the Galapagos.

Richard Roxburgh, Felix Kammerer, Toby Wallace, Paul Gleeson, Ignacio Gasparini and Nicholas Denton join a cast that includes previously announced stars Jude Law, Vanessa Kirby, Sydney Sweeney, Ana de Armas and Daniel Brühl. The film is based on real-life events and hails from Tetris scribe Noah Pink.

December 3, 2023

AGC Studios is mulling the opening of a Middle East office as it increases its activity in the region, according to chairman and CEO Stuart Ford.

The LA-based film financing and sales company, whose slate includes Richard Linklater’s Hit Man and Anna Kendrick’s Red Sea title Woman Of The Hour, has been active in the MENA region since Ford founded the company in 2018 with Image Nation Abu Dhabi as one its cornerstone investors.

November 30, 2023

Saudi fantasy romance ‘HWJN’ will open the Red Sea Film Festival on Nov. 30, while the emotional family drama “To My Son” will premiere in Red Sea’s Arab Spectacular section.

The deals mark another significant step in AGC Studios’ drive to bringing theatrical features from the Middle East and North Africa region to global audiences.

November 29, 2023

Egyptian actor Mohamed Karim is teaming up with Hit Man producer AGC Studios on Judgment of the Dead, a possession thriller with an Egyptian spin, with Stuart Ford’s AGC will co-produce with Karim’s MK Global Entertainment.

November 1, 2023

IFC Films and Shudder have acquired rights for North America, the UK and Ireland to Image Nation Abu Dhabi and Spooky Pictures’ Late Night With The Devil. IFC plans to give the supernatural horror film an exclusive theatrical release and Shudder will stream the title at a later date.

AGC is handling international sales of the film at the AFM.

October 30, 2023

EXCLUSIVE: Oscar winner Ron Howard is heading into production at the end of November on survival thriller Eden, which was previously named Origin Of Species.

Oscar nominee Vanessa Kirby, who will next be seen starring in Ridley Scott’s Napoleon opposite Joaquin Phoenix, and Euphoria and White Lotus star Sydney Sweeney have joined the previously announced Jude Law, Ana de Armas and Daniel Bruhl.

October 26, 2023

“Tinder Swindler” studio AGC Unwritten has sold U.S. rights to Monica Villamizar and Jordan Bryon’s feature documentary “Transition” to Gravitas Ventures.

The film follows Australian filmmaker Jordan Bryon, a trans man, as he embeds with a Taliban unit as they retake control of Afghanistan. AGC International will screen the film and launch international sales at the American Film Market next week. Gravitas will release the film in March 2024.

October 24, 2023

AGC International will launch AFM sales next week on Sitges award-winner and supernatural thriller Late Night With The Devil from Image Nation Abu Dhabi and Spooky Pictures.

October 16, 2023

Stuart Ford’s AGC Television has boarded the series adaptation of F.G. Haghenbeck’s novel, ‘Primavera del Mal’ (‘The Spring of Evil’) alongside Mexican-American filmmaker Fernando Lebrija of Cielo Content and Irreversible Pictures.

To be retitled “Amapola,” the upcoming historical drama series is set in the early 20th century when the Chinese held sway over the drug trade along the Mexican-U.S. border.

October 15, 2023

The second season of the tropical noir crime drama “Troppo” has completed production in Queensland, Australia, with Thomas Jane (“Boogie Nights”) and Nicole Chamoun (“Safe Harbour,” “On the Ropes”) reprising their roles as private investigators Ted Conkaffey and Amanda Pharrell.

The show is a Perpetual Entertainment and Beyond Entertainment production in association with Renegade Entertainment, with major production financing from AGC Television in association with Screen Queensland.

September 28, 2023

EXCLUSIVE: Roland Emmerich is heading to next month’s Mipcom Cannes to present first-look footage from upcoming Gladiator epic Those About to Die.

AGC Studios and High End Productions will host an invite-only presentation on the first afternoon of the mid-October market, showcasing the footage along with a Q&A with the Godzilla auteur.

September 18, 2023

EXCLUSIVE: Netflix closed a $20 million deal on Hit Man, making the biggest deal at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival and of the year for that matter. After the Richard Linklater-directed noir comic thriller debuted to raves at Venice, the film was expected to fetch the biggest deal of the fall festivals so far. Hit Man did not disappoint.

Heading into its final weekend, TIFF had been slow so far on the deal front, but this is the second big one for Netflix, with the Anna Kendrick-directed Woman of the Hour getting a Netflix deal around $11 million. AGC Studios financed and produced the Kendrick film also.

September 11, 2023

In the first major on-site deal at TIFF Netflix has pounced on US and remaining international rights to Anna Kendrick’s directorial debut Woman Of The Hour following overwhelmingly positive reviews from Friday’s world premiere.

August 30, 2023

EXCLUSIVE: L.A.-based Brit Stuart Ford has operated at the sharp end of international film sales and movie financing for more than two decades.

The sands of indie film financing are forever shifting but Ford and his collaborators were set a new challenge this fall when it came to launching three AGC-backed completed features amid the two Hollywood strikes: Richard Linklater’s Venice and Toronto title Hit Man starring Glen Powell, and Toronto movies The Woman of the Hour and Poolman, the directorial debuts of Anna Kendrick and Chris Pine, respectively.

May 20, 2023

The executive was feted by Variety at a May 19 cocktail reception in Cannes. Many of the super-producer’s business associates and partners, as well as industry friends, dropped by the Croisette villa to toast Ford, who was given the honor by Variety’s co-editor in chief Ramin Setoodeh.

May 15, 2023

EXCLUSIVE: Normal People and Where the Crawdads Sing star Daisy Edgar-Jones is the latest star attached to Oscar winner Ron Howard’s next movie Origin of Species, which is a hot project at the Cannes Market.

May 14, 2023

EXCLUSIVE: We told you about Ron Howard’s survival thriller Origin of Species last fall and the project now has a killer cast with Oscar nominee Ana De Armas (No Time To Die), Oscar nominee Jude Law (Sherlock Holmes) and Golden Globe nominee Daniel Brühl (All Quiet On The Western Front) attached and Oscar winner Alicia Vikander (Tomb Raider) in talks to join.

Howard’s Imagine Entertainment are behind the buzz project with CAA Media Finance and Stuart Ford’s AGC Studios, the latter which is newly aboard to finance and will be selling at the upcoming Cannes market.

May 9, 2023

Variety will be feting Ford with the Billion Dollar Producer honor at a May 19 cocktail reception in Cannes.

Ford has built AGC on policies of calculated risk-taking, diversity, diversification and integrity. He’s betting that these qualities position the company well for the globalized streaming era.

May 9, 2023

“Those About to Die,” AGC Television’s upcoming gladiator series from Roland Emmerich, stars Anthony Hopkins and boasts a cast drawn from across Europe and the Middle East. It’s also financially innovative.

Rather than rely on a single, deep-pocketed streamer to write the check for the pricey series, budgeted at $145 million for the first season, AGC adopted a split rights structure: U.S. rights are licensed to Peacock, European rights to HEP, the Herbert Kloiber Sr./Constantin joint venture, and AGC International distributing in the rest of the world.

May 8, 2023

EXCLUSIVE: Alison Oliver (Saltburn), Jurnee Smollett (Lovecraft Country), Marc Maron (To Leslie) and Odessa Young (The Staircase) have closed deals to join The Order, the crime thriller to be directed for Stuart Ford’s AGC Studios by Justin Kurzel, which is heading into production on Wednesday.

May 2, 2023

EXCLUSIVE: Tye Sheridan (The Tender Bar) has closed a deal to star alongside Jude Law and Nicholas Hoult in AGC Studios‘ crime thriller The Order from director Justin Kurzel (Assassin’s Creed, Macbeth), which is heading into production in Alberta, Canada on May 11th.

April 26, 2023

They Found Us reunites AGC and Blomkamp after 2021 supernatural thriller Demonic and is based on an original screenplay by Jeremy Slater (Moon Knight, Fantastic Four) about a father (Kinnaman) and daughter on a camping trip to fix their broken relationship when they are attacked by a hostile alien determined to take them to its world.

March 20, 2023

Game of Thrones star Iwan Rheon is one of nine joining the cast of Peacock’s epic gladiator drama Those About to Die, as principal photography on the Roland Emmerich show kicked off at Rome’s historic Cinecittà Studios.

February 9, 2023

Peacock’s upcoming gladiator drama Those About to Die has added seven names to its cast, with Marco Kreuzpaintner (Beat) now signed up as co-director and exec producer.

February 3, 2023

EXCLUSIVE: Jude Law (Fantastic Beasts) and Nicholas Hoult (X-Men franchise) have been set to lead true-crime movie The Order, which acclaimed Australian filmmaker Justin Kurzel (Macbeth) will direct.

January 25, 2023

Paddy Considine (House of the Dragon, Peaky Blinders) and Mena Massoud (Aladdin, Jack Ryan) have signed on to star in the sports drama Giant, written and directed by Rowan Athale (The Rise, Gangs of London, Strange But True) with Sylvester Stallone and Braden Aftergood of Balboa Productions on board as executive producers.

January 18, 2023

Anthony Hopkins has boarded Roland Emmerich’s gladiator series “Those About to Die.” The Oscar winner will play Emperor Vespasian in the Peacock drama, which is being produced by AGC Television and is written by Oscar-nominated “Saving Private Ryan” writer Robert Rodat.

January 17, 2023

Joel Kinnaman and Mark Strong co-star in the action thriller, which begins shooting in Malta in late February.

December 29, 2022

The media and entertainment world has never had it easy, but 2022 was a whole new level of difficult. Which is why this year’s Variety500 feels especially important. The individuals on this list deserve a pat on the back for excelling at a time when it’s tough to break out from the pack and distinguish oneself.

AGC Chairman & CEO Stuart Ford included.

December 6, 2022

The unscripted arm of Stuart Ford’s indie studio AGC Studios has named its development team. Emily Knight has been named AGC Unwritten’s VP of Development for the unit, with Yael Egnal, Hannah Shuman and Moriah Lee also joining the team.

November 10, 2022

AGC Studios has attached rising star Chloe Bailey to play the lead in its Wall Street drama Midas Touch based on the true story of ground-breaking Black Wall Street trader Lauren Simmons.

November 7, 2022

Joel Kinnaman and Mark Strong-led action thriller “The Silent Hour” has scored worldwide deals for AGC International.

First announced in October, Kinnaman (“Suicide Squad,” “For All Mankind”) leads “The Silent Hour” as a Boston police detective who suffers an on-the-job accident that leaves him hearing impaired. Sixteen months later, he’s an interpreter for the department and, with his friend and partner (Strong), must battle a team of corrupt cops attempting to eliminate a deaf murder witness.

November 3, 2022

From rebooting film strategy to a new normal for markets, the industry veteran weighs in on evolving industry.

October 31, 2022

AGC International has reported major pre-sales on Chris Pine’s directorial debut Poolman including a multi-territory deal with Paramount as it prepares to show first footage to distribution partners at the AFM this week.

October 20, 2022

AGC Studios has dropped an early hot title into the AFM and announced it will finance and produce with Eric Paquette’s Meridian Pictures action thriller The Silent Hour to star Joel Kinnaman.

October 4, 2022

Hitman, the upcoming action comedy from Richard Linklater starring Glen Powell and Adria Arjona, has started shooting in New Orleans and has bolstered an ensemble cast. Joining Austin Amelio, who The Hollywood Reporter exclusively announced was set to star in the film earlier this week, are Retta (Good Boys, NBC’s Good Girls) and Molly Bernard (Sully, The Intern). The news was announced by AGC Studios, who will co-finance the film will indie financiers Shivani Rawat’s ShivHans Pictures and Monarch Media.

September 20, 2022

AGC International, the international sales and distribution arm of Stuart Ford’s independent content studio AGC Studios, has secured a raft of pre-sales on Richard Linklater’s Hitman and A