US actor-writer-producer Christopher Atkins has signed as a producer with Australia’s Ignite Elite Artists, which is developing more than two dozen film and TV projects with its clients.

Atkins is attached to several projects in Oz with Queensland-based producer Brenda Papworth. One is Lucky Valentine, a comedy/drama scripted by Marianne Patterson about an aging US baseballer who is traded to Australia, where he finds himself involved in a cricket team in a country town. The team aims to raise money to support a girl who is dying of cancer.

Rod Hardy is set to direct, according to Tony Bonner, who will play a supporting character and is producing with Papworth and Atkins. Bonner tells IF the film is being privately financed and the hope is to cast an A-list US actor as the lead.

While Atkins is best known for his breakthrough role with Brooke Shields in 1980’s The Blue Lagoon, he has appeared in about 100 independent films, telemovies and series and he was a regular in Dallas.

Last year he directed, wrote and starred in the indie movie The Storyteller, in which he plays an elderly man suffering from the ravages of his time in the Korean War.

Ignite Elite Artists director Michelle Horner tells IF the agency has formed a partnership with Atkins and Papworth. “Our goal is to promote and provide opportunities for actors and creatives at the highest level in Australia,” she said. “In doing so we will develop products that have greater global resonance.”

Ignite represents producers, directors and writers. Horner says the firm is working on 25 feature films and four TV projects with its clients.

“We have been involved in productions for a while but only recently has the agency moved into representing across the board more officially,” she adds.

By Don Groves

Thu 16/01/2014 IF magazine