MONDO HOLLYWOODLAND Goes into Production in Los Angeles
UK film producer Robbie Leacock has joined LA/Shanghai-based film and commercial production company Assembly Line Entertainment as head of its newly formed UK Division, founder and CEO Janek Ambros announced today.
Ambros says, “We’re delighted to have Robbie join us on the Assembly Line. We’re looking forward to his expertise working with us on co-productions—development, co-productions with the UK and Europe, securing finance deals, and being Assembly Line’s voice for everything UK. Using his producing expertise and extensive knowledge of the British film industry, Leacock plans to source UK companies to bring them into tripartite co-productions with our new production partner HUB Film in Shanghai, which Assembly Line forged in November 2017.”
Robbie Leacock brings truly unique expertise and wealth of experience as a producer of independent film, sports broadcasting and animated children’s television to Assembly Line. Grandson of director Philip Leacock and great-grandson of “cinema verite” pioneer Ricky Leacock, Robbie spent several years producing content for the sports broadcaster Supersport in South Africa before moving to the United States to study at the New York Film Academy. Whilst in the US, he co-produced the political documentary IMMINENT THREAT for director Janek Ambros and executive producer James Cromwell in 2015.
In 2016, Robbie returned to London where he joined Potboiler Productions under the guidance of top UK producers Gail Egan (THE CONSTANT GARDENER, A MOST WANTED MAN) and Andrea Calderwood (THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND, WOMAN WALKS AHEAD). Whilst at Potboiler, Leacock worked on the Michael Fassbender indie TRESPASS AGAINST US and was assistant producer on Stanley Tucci’s FINAL PORTRAIT with Geoffrey Rush and Armie Hammer. Robbie then returned to South Africa and worked as associate producer on Gideon Raff’s 2018 thriller THE RED SEA DIVING RESORT with Chris Evans, Haley Bennett, Sir Ben Kingsley and Greg Kinnear. He has recently written and produced a ten-episode children’s animated series called ImagiMates, which is expected to be distributed in 2019.
Leacock’s first project for Assembly Line Entertainment is to produce the feature FAIRFAX, a comedy about three struggling young actresses in Hollywood, from his own script. He’s also currently producing an indie romantic comedy in Thailand, WHERE ARE THEY NOW? for Thai writer/director Bank Tangjaitrong, filming there later this year, about a former Asian-American child star going to Thailand to help rediscover his identity. '
Ambros continues, “in an increasingly globalized entertainment industry, we're excited to bring on my long time producing partner Robbie Leacock, to help us connect more companies in the UK to the USA and to our Chinese presence in Shanghai. We’re also excited to have Robbie as part of our general creative team to support our current production slate and make films and television programming to cater to audiences outside the US.”
Chris Blim (founder and editor of experimental literary journal Sheriff Nottinghamhttp://www.sheriffnottingham.com) also joins Assembly Line as a creative executive. Blim is producer and co-writer on a movie Assembly Line has just put into production, MONDO HOLLYWOODLAND, a psychedelic comedy that explores various pockets of Los Angeles through vignettes of characters that include movie producers, political radicals, street artists, surfers and many more, all through the eyes of the spirit of the late James Mason. The movie stars Jessica Jade Andres (DON’T WORRY, HE WON’T GET FAR ON FOOT), Alex Loynaz (9-1-1) and Alyssa Sabo, an up and coming comedian in LA. Leacock serves as co-producer on that film as well.