EXCLUSIVE
The fund behind the box office and critical hit “Black Swan” has closed a new fund nearly ten times the size of the original investment, TheWrap has learned.
Brian Oliver, the President of Cross Creek Pictures, told TheWrap that the company has closed a $300 million fund called Cross Creek Partners II.
“We took the same investors from fund one, sunsetted it early, and they all came in at ten times their investment,“ he said.
That's hardly a surprise. The first investors, a group of Texas and Louisana oil and gas interests, had the kind of success that most movie funds dream about — on their first time up at bat.
“Black Swan,” the company’s first movie, was a massive hit, with a worldwide box office of $292 million to date.
Little wonder, then, that they stepped up to reinvest. The fund will be used to finance and produce about four films a year with budgets at $15 to $30 million. Oliver is currently in negotiations with a major studio for an output deal for those movies.
Read also: Fresh Out of the Gate, Cross Creek Makes 'Black Swan' Splash
Cross Creek investors put up $6.8 million on that film and have realized a return of $54 million, larger than the entire fund, which was $40 million.
Oliver both finances and produces his films, and is about to complete principal photography on “The Ides of March,” starring George Clooney, which is being shot in Michigan because of the state’s tax breaks.
An idealistic staffer for a newbie presidential candidate in "The Ides of March" gets a crash course on dirty politics during his stint on the campaign trail. It's based on the play by Beau Willimon.
Sony will distribute the film, budgeted at $22.5 million; but it has already secured $17 million in foreign presales.
