Mary Aloe
Considered one of Hollywood's most prolific up-and-coming female producers, Mary Aloe formed Proud Mary Entertainment, Inc., a Beverly Hills based Feature/Film/Television Production and Talent Management Company, in 1999. The five-person company specializes in developing and producing independent and studio features, television series, network and cable event movies. Mary Aloe and Proud Mary Entertainment specialize in obtaining 100% financing for features by raising private equity, working with hedge funds, gap financing, the top tier of foreign sales companies and securing domestic distribution.
2007 into 2008 is going to be another banner year for Mary Aloe and her staff at Proud Mary Entertainment, with a new six picture deal with Smithfield Street Productions and Studio in association with Michael Doland Owner of The Voyager Group (Voagergrp.com) Federated. Hollywood and Wine a comedy starring David Spade, Vivica Fox, Chaz Palminteri etc is the first of the slate starting principal photography May 28th. Second feature will be Master Class starring Faye Dunaway, Robert DeNiro, Val Kilmer and Rachael Weiss. The third picture on Aloe's new slate will be Frail starring Tom Wilksinson and Racheal Bilson. Aloe's other division runs acquisitions and is helming a $50M film revolving P&A (Prints and Advertising) Fund backed by Merrill Lynch for Regent Entertainment's Regent Releasing. A fund dedicated to giving Independent Films a Theatrical marketplace.
The company has also been enjoying a run with a record slate of six completed features in just last the two years which will all be released in 2008. Given this ambitious pace of production, the company is garnering a reputation as a mini-studio. One of Proud Mary Entertainment production partners is with Insight Film Studios in Vancouver, Canada, with whom Aloe recently produced five feature films.
Aloe and her company partners already have their first four movies lined up to produce for 2008. Poor Things starring Shirley Maclaine and Olympia Dukakis shooting in Los Angeles, The Intruder casting now will be shooting in New Brunswick, Canada and Tremble shooting in Pittsburgh, PA. and Blind. Spot, to be shot in Lou is casting now and Alan Rudolph is attached to direct.
Proud Mary Entertainment have raised the financing, produced and has completed production on the following films, including: When A Man Falls In The Forest, starring Sharon Stone and Timothy Hutton which was selected for main competition at the prestigious Berlin International Film Festival in February and main competition for America's South By Southwest Film Festival -- and Numb, starring Matthew Perry and Mary Steenburgen, which has been selected to have its world premiere in the Discovery section at this year's Tribeca Film Festival.
Proud Mary Entertainment is in post-production with Battle In Seattle, a political action drama written and directed by Stuart Townsend and starring Charlize Theron, Woody Harrelson, Ray Liotta, Channing Tatum, Andre Benjamin (Outkast), Joshua Jackson, Martin Henderson, Connie Nielsen and Michelle Rodriguez. Battle in Seattle will have its world premiere at this years Toronto International Film Festival in main competition. It had the biggest sale at the festival and will be released through Think Films in April 2008.
Principal Photography also wrapped March 23rd on While She Was Out, a female action thriller starring Kim Basinger and Lukas Haas. Proud Mary Entertainment and Insight Film Studios are now in post-production on a psychological thriller, Tortured, starring Laurence Fishburne and Cole Hauser. With a host of other high-profile projects currently in development, 2007 promises to be an equally productive year for Proud Mary Entertainment. At present, Cabin Fever with Lions Gate has now completed its filming in North Carolina.
This resounding success paved the way for Aloe's first feature film endeavor in 2004 entitled Downtown: A Street Tale, starring Genevieve Bujold and Domenica Scorsese with American World Pictures which had a six week run in theaters this summer.
In the television division of Proud Mary Entertainment, Room 401 was produced jointly with partners Ashton Kutcher and Jason Goldberg premiered on MTV July 17th, 2007 to smash ratings and continued to air every Tuesday night at 10:00 PM on its first season. Mary Aloe is also developing a bevy of reality series The Real Women of Nashville and The Real Life Coming to America with the Prince of Nigeria as well as The Royal Pain with the last Prince of Italy, Lorenzo de Medici as well as a one hour drama The Nancy Grace Project with America's most famous female prosecutor and CNN talk show host with 20th Century Fox television studios.
Aloe marked her transition to television movies in 2001 with The Princess and the Marine, a MOW for NBC Television. The project, chronicling the true story of a Middle Eastern Princess who fell in love with an American Marine, generated so much excitement it incited the second biggest bidding war in television history 'see Mary Aloe'. It then became the highest rated Movie of the Week that year for NBC. Aloe executive produced this made for TV movie with Columbia Tri-Star.
Proud Mary Entertainment is also co-owner of the Pritcher Management Company, a management firm located in Beverly Hills, CA. The final division that makes up the five person team is the P.R. division in which their clients include corporate companies currently sponsored by Staples, Mattel and Xerox.
Aloe has also affiliated herself with the top organizations in the entertainment industry. She is a member of the following guilds: WEN (Women's Entertainment Network), American Federation of Women in Television and Radio, CAUCUS, Women in Film, The Producers Guild of America, Power UP! and the First Weekenders Club.