For Immediate Release
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
‘CHRISTMAS IN CANAAN’ PRODUCTION BIOS MARGARET LOESCH (Executive Producer) – Margaret A. Loesch is the co-founder and former CEO of the The Hatchery LLC, a family entertainment company launched in 2003 with partner and former Co-CEO Bruce Stein and investor/partners Peter Guber and Paul Schaeffer. Loesch transitioned from The Hatchery to the recently formed Hasbro/Discovery Joint-Venture Network as its President and Chief Executive Officer. Loesch remains an integral part of the company, serving as an active board member. Concurrent with launching The Hatchery with Stein, in 2002-2003 Loesch raised the financing, produced, and in 2004 distributed, the fifth movie in the Benji franchise, “Benji Off the Leash,” with creator/director Joe Camp. From September 1998 until October of 2001, Loesch was the first President and Chief Executive Officer of Crown Media United States and its U. S. Hallmark Channel, having built and launched that channel after first restructuring and strengthening its predecessor, the U. S. cable channel Odyssey. Previously, she was President of the Jim Henson Television Group, Worldwide. During her tenure, she supervised the development and production of the award-winning “Bear in the Big Blue House” and served as its Executive Producer. While with Henson, Loesch played a key role in the 1998 acquisition of the Liberty Media-owned Odyssey Channel, which was acquired by the Jim Henson Company and Hallmark Entertainment. At the request of Odyssey’s consortium of partners, Loesch moved over to helm that cable channel, and is credited with building its programming strategy and ratings, forging a new management infrastructure, and establishing an enduring foundation for the Hallmark Channel, which she subsequently launched in 2001, replacing the Odyssey programming service. Her accomplishments included successfully securing the rights to the full library of Hallmark Hall of Fame episodes, for which she created a programming strategy that greatly enhanced the channel’s ratings as well as garnered substantially increased sales revenue for the network. In addition, she built an aggressive slate of acquisitions with a programming strategy that substantially built ratings, and are still delivering ratings, for the channel today. From 1990 through 1997, Loesch was the founding President and CEO, as well as the key architect, of FOX Kids Networks, Worldwide. She reshaped the landscape of children's television with a creative strategy that merged diversified, quality programming with innovative and aggressive marketing. Loesch’s strategy and vision incubated many program concepts and built them into rating hits which included the highly stylized “Batman” series, Stephen Spielberg’s “Animaniacs,” Marvel’s “X-Men” and “Spider-Man” and the “Mighty Morphin Power (more) HALLMARK CHANNEL/ ‘CHRISTMAS IN CANAAN’ – Production Bios – Page 2 Rangers.” She also successfully expanded Fox Kids into Latin America, Australia, and the United Kingdom. She resigned as Vice-Chairman in late 1997. From 1984 to 1990, Loesch was President and CEO of Marvel Productions, the film production arm of Marvel Comics. Under her leadership, Marvel’s revenues grew tenfold as she built the company from a production boutique into an animation powerhouse. While helming Marvel, the company earned dozens of Emmy® awards and industry honors for production excellence. During her tenure, Loesch executive produced multiple hit series including “Transformers” and “G.I. Joe,” and enjoyed a six year creative collaboration with the legendary Jim Henson while producing Jim Henson’s “Muppet Babies” and “Fraggle Rock.” Previously, from 1979 to 1984, Loesch was Executive Vice-President of Hanna-Barbera, where she supervised the development and launch of more than 500 half hours of television production, including the multiple Emmy-award winning series which she developed and proctored, the “Smurfs.” From 1975 to 1979 she was with NBC TV Network as its Director of Children's Programs, and from 1971 to 1975 she was with ABC TV Network. Among her awards, Loesch is a four-time Emmy Award winner, a George Foster Peabody Award winner, a Vision Award, and recipient of the prestigious Chair Award from the Caucus for Television Producers, Writers, and Directors. She serves on the Board of Trustees of Sesame Workshop, producers of television’s most highly acclaimed children’s educational series, “Sesame Street.” ### DAN ANGEL (Executive Producer) - Dan Angel, an Emmy®, Peabody and WGA award- winning writer and producer, has been creating and supervising quality film and television production for more than 20 years. His broad range of experience includes an extensive background in many genres from horror and science fiction to branded family entertainment in all formats. He has been responsible for some of the biggest successes in both family series and longform movies over the past two decades. Angel joined The Hatchery, a family entertainment production company, as a partner in June 2003, where he has produced and developed a number of television programs in both live action and animation. Newly appointed as the company’s Chief Creative Officer, Angel is responsible for managing all project development, sales and production. Most recently, Angel completed work on “Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story.” He served as the Executive Producer on this event movie for TNT. It starred Cuba Gooding Jr. and Kimberly Elise and was (more) HALLMARK CHANNEL/ ‘CHRISTMAS IN CANAAN’ – Production Bios – Page 3 directed by Thomas Carter. “Gifted Hands” had its worldwide premiere on TNT on February 7th 2009 and won the night, beating out all network and cable programming. Angel recently completed “Christmas in Canaan,” an original family movie for Hallmark Channel, and is in development on a scripted family show based on the popular Great Brain book series. He also has a new horror series, “Shock Treatment” with partner Billy Brown and horror veteran Sean Cunningham, creator of “Friday the 13th” and “The Last House on the Left.” “Shock Treatment” will premiere first as a new original series on the web. Angel is also developing a feature film based on the hit Broadway musical Jekyll and Hyde. Dune Entertainment and Greg Coote are partners on the project. In 2007, Angel wrote and produced the first in The Hatchery’s series of direct-to-DVD movies based on R.L. Stine’s Haunting Hour and Nightmare Hour books, in partnership with Universal Home Video. “R.L. Stine’s The Haunting Hour: Don’t Think About It” premiered on The Cartoon Network to record ratings in September of 2007 and earned him a WGA writing award nomination for Best Writing in Children’s Long form. The Halloween DVD continues to sell well around the world. In 2004, Angel did double duty, producing 130 episodes of the game show “Balderdash” and 13 episodes of the swashbuckling adventure “Young Blades,” both for the PAX network under a deal with NBC. He also served as writer and creator of both shows. Over the last four years, Angel has been responsible for the development of a number of properties, including “Scrooge the Musical,” a remake of the Albert Finney classic for CBS and a miniseries for Lifetime, “Ruby,” based on the popular teen girl book series V.C. Andrews. In addition to “Ruby”, Angel is developing a movie remake of the popular V.C. Andrews best seller, Flowers in the Attic for MGM. Angel has worked closely with American Greetings to help develop a number of their brands into television series. Those properties include “Twisted Whiskers,” “Sushi Pack,” “Mariyoku Yummy” and “The Care Bears Movie 2007.” Among his other noteworthy accomplishments, Angel secured the movie rights to the inspiring story of Bill Porter after seeing an interview on ABC’s “20/20.” The culmination of a four-year effort by Angel, during which he gathered a top-notch creative team of talent including actor Bill Macy and Helen Mirren, was the production of a two-hour movie event based on Porter’s life entitled “Door to Door.” Angel served as Executive Producer of the movie, which he had sold to TNT and Johnson & Johnson. In 2003, “Door to Door” was not only one of the most watched but also one of the most honored TV movies of all time including AFI, Peabody, Emmy and Critics Choice honors. The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences nominated “Door to Door” with more nominations than any other program that year, 12, and it won six prime time Emmy Awards, the most of any (more) HALLMARK CHANNEL/ ‘CHRISTMAS IN CANAAN’ – Production Bios – Page 4 program for that year, including Outstanding Made for Television Movie, Lead Actor in a Miniseries or Movie, Outstanding Writing for a Miniseries Movie or Dramatic Special and Directing for a Miniseries, Movie or Dramatic Special. The six Emmy wins for “Door to Door” made it the most-ever garnered for a single program for TNT. Previously, from 1995 through 1998, Angel won recognition when he produced, co-wrote and co-story edited “Goosebumps” for FOX Kids Network, winning the WGA Award for Best Children’s Teleplay and a Gemini nomination for Best Children’s Series. TV Guide picked “Goosebumps” two years in a row as one of the best kid’s shows on television. ”Goosebumps” continues to be successful, being one of the highest-rated series on Cartoon Network for the 2007 and 2008 Halloween seasons. From 1997 to1998, Angel and his partner, Billy Brown, served as Story Editor/Writers on the FOX TV hit, “The X-Files.” 1998 was the only year that the writing staff of the popular sci-fi series took home a Golden Globe for Best Dramatic Writing. Angel also served as Supervising Producer, in 1998, on “Animorphs,” a television series adaptation of the hit book series for Scholastic Productions and Nickelodeon. From 1999 through 2001, Angel had an overall writing/producing deal with The Jim Henson Company where, with his former partner, he developed and supervised a variety of projects including “Brats of the Lost Nebula,” which aired on the WB Network, and was selected as one of the 10 best new children’s programs by TV Guide for 1999.