Euro Gang Entertainment, the company launched last year by Hollywood veterans Gianni Nunnari (“300,” “Immortals”) and Simon Horsman (“Legacy: The True Story of the L.A. Lakers”) is ramping up operations in Italy through a partnership with Rome-based Alfred Film, the young shingle co-founded by experienced producers Roberto Amoroso and Maria Theresia Braun.
The Euro Gang deal with Alfred currently comprises three feature films and an English-language TV series that will shoot in Italy and elsewhere, according to a statement.
Founded in 2020, Alfred Film – which is named in homage to Alfred Hitchcock – is focused on commercially-driven quality projects such as their mainstream comedy “Tre di Troppo,” directed by and starring Italian comedy draw Fabio De Luigi, which grossed €4.7 million ($5 million) at the local box office and is the third highest-grossing Italian film of 2023.
Amoroso is a former creative director at Sky Italia, where during a long stint at the pay-TV platform he was instrumental to shepherding groundbreaking Italian series such as “Gomorra,” which is Italy’s top TV export, and Paolo Sorrentino’s “The Young Pope.” Prior to co-founding Alfred Film, Theresia Braun spent two decades at NBCUniversal in Italy, where she was head of marketing and original productions.
The projects on which Euro Gang and Alfred have teamed up are:
–– “Black Vatican”: In this previously announced eight-episode horror series, a Satan-possessed Pope seeks to undermine the Catholic Church from the inside, opposed by a renegade holy man named Father Torrence. The English-language show is based on an original story by Andrea Nobile (“My Name Is Vendetta”) and Mizio Curcio (“Rosy Abate: La Serie”). Hot German director Marco Kreuzpainter, who recently co-directed upcoming gladiator series “Those About to Die” with Roland Emmerich, will direct the pilot penned by British writer Alex Child.
–– “Les Italiens” (working title): Andrea Nobile has penned this Paris-set heist movie, in which a criminal gang posing as National Gendarmerie policemen execute a 180-second robbery that nets €20 million. Things take an ugly turn when the fake cops inadvertently run over and kill an Arab man, triggering a firestorm amongst locals.
–– “Amore alla lettera”: A romantic comedy geared for young adults that takes place on Valentine’s Day and veers into the supernatural, co-written by Michele Abatantuono and Lara Prando, who penned “Tre di Troppo.”
–– “At Full Speed” (working title): An Italian remake of French director Nicolas Benamou’s 2016 comedy “À Fond,” about a family who are on holiday when their car’s cruise control gets stuck at 80 miles per hour. In this case, the family is “celebrating the purchase of the latest technology-packed electric minivan,” the provided synopsis reads.
“We are absolutely thrilled to be partnered with Theresia and Roberto on these initial projects,” Nunnari and Horsman in a statement, in which they praised the Italian producers’ “expansive network of industry connections along with their deep creative and production expertise, particularly within the region.”
Commented Braun and Amoroso: “We are honored to be partnering with Gianni Nunnari and Simon Horsman to break new ground in the Italian and European market. It’s an enormous opportunity for a young company like ours to expand our international reach and we are looking forward to breathing life into some very innovative and cutting-edge projects.”
Euro Gang has some 30 projects in active development, including a doc on renowned chef and hotelier Nobu Matsuhisa directed by Matt Tyrnaue and co-produced with Altimeter Films and Stuart Ford’s AGC Studios; a multi-project deal with Kreuzpainter; and an unspecified Broadway play. The banner is affiliated with Nunnari’s Hollywood Gang Productions, a producer on “Those About to Die,” which was recently shot in Italy’s Cinecittà Studios and will play on Peacock in the U.S. and Prime Video in Europe. Hollywood Gang “will continue to develop and service projects with the major Hollywood studios,” the statement said.
Nunnari, pictured left, is a Rome-born Italian and started out in Hollywood as head of Italy’s Cecchi Gori Pictures in Los Angeles.
