 | |
| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Production company |
| Founded | 2016 |
| Founder | Jessica Chastain |
| Headquarters | , United States |
Key people | Clemens Pongratz, Leili Gerami (executive producers) Kelly Carmichael (president of production and development) |
| Products | |
Freckle Films is an American film and television production company. It was founded by Jessica Chastain in 2016. [1] The company's projects include the biopics The Eyes of Tammy Faye (2021) and George & Tammy (2022), both starring Chastain.
In February 2016, it was reported that Chastain had launched her company. [1] In May 2017, Kelly Carmichael became a president of production and development. Carmichael, who had previously worked at Miramax and at The Weinstein Company as a production executive.
Under Freckle Films, Chastain produced and starred in the action film Ava (2020), written and initially set to be directed by Matthew Newton, who has been accused of domestic violence. Following backlash against her for agreeing to work with him, Newton was replaced with Tate Taylor. [2] [3] Boyd van Hoeij of The Hollywood Reporter bemoaned that Chastain's talents as an action star had been wasted in an underwhelming film. [4] Released theatrically during the COVID-19 pandemic, it performed poorly at the box office but gained success on video on demand. [5] The film was released in Hungary on July 2, 2020. [6] It was released in the United States through DirecTV Cinema on August 27, 2020, followed by video on demand on September 25, 2020, by Vertical Entertainment. [7] [8] [9] It received a DVD and Blu-ray release in Australia on September 2, 2020, by Madman Entertainment. [10] [11] It began streaming on Netflix on December 6, 2020. [12] It was the third most-watched film on the site on its first day of release and finished first in its second day. [13] It went on to become the top-streamed film over its first weekend. [14] In Hungary, the film made $31,820 from 59 theaters in its opening weekend, finishing first at the box office. The film grossed a total of $3.3 million worldwide. [15] In its debut weekend in the U.S., Ava was the most rented film on Apple TV and Google Play, and second on FandangoNow. [16] In its second weekend the film topped Apple TV, Google Play, and Spectrum, and remained second at FandangoNow. IndieWire described the performance of Ava as "the best showing for a non-premium title in the six months we've covered weekly VOD performance." [5]
The company then entered production on The Eyes of Tammy Faye , starring Chastain and Andrew Garfield. The Eyes of Tammy Faye had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2021, and was released on September 17, 2021, by Searchlight Pictures. To look like Bakker, Chastain wore prosthetic makeup which took 4–7 hours to apply. [17] The role also required her to sing, which she has said made her nervous. [18] She worked with the music producer Dave Cobb to record seven songs for the film's soundtrack. [19] David Fear of Rolling Stone found Chastain to be the "only reason to see this curiously tepid biopic" and praised her for rising above the script to humanize Bakker. [20] Kevin Maher of The Times considered it to be a "riveting, unleashed and award-worthy performance" and compared it to Joaquin Phoenix's performance in Joker (2019). [21] Critics praised the performances (particularly Chastain's) while criticizing the screenplay, deeming the film to be inferior to the documentary. At the 94th Academy Awards the film won Best Actress (for Chastain) and Best Makeup and Hairstyling. Chastain also won the SAG Award and Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Actress.
In 2018, Chastain and a group of international actresses travelled to Cannes Film Festival to pitch an all female ensemble spy film, The 355 . [22] Universal Pictures acquired the rights to the film at $20 million. [23] It was released on January 7, 2022. In 2022, the company purchased the rights to adapt the novel The School for Good Mothers as a television series. [24]
Freckle Films and Chastain then executive produced the Showtime biographical miniseries George & Tammy , in which she played the country singer Tammy Wynette opposite Michael Shannon's George Jones. [25] [26] In preparation, Chastain and Shannon trained with a vocal coach to sing several of their character's songs. She also lost weight to play Wynette toward the end of her life. [27] Emma Fraser of The Playlist was appreciate of the chemistry between the actors, and took note of the "fragility and toughness" in Chastain's portrayal. [28] The series had strong viewership across various platforms, marking a high for a Showtime original series in multi-platform era. [29] She won another SAG Award, a Golden Globe nomination and earned her first nomination for the Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie; the series also received three other nominations. [30] [31] [32]
| Year | Film title | Director | Gross (worldwide) | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Ava | Tate Taylor | $3.3 million [15] | |
| 2021 | The Eyes of Tammy Faye | Michael Showalter | $2.7 million [33] | Academy Award wins for Best Actress in a Leading Role & Best Makeup and Hairstyling |
| 2022 | The 355 | Simon Kinberg | $27.8 million [34] [35] | |
| TBA | Mothers' Instinct | Benoît Delhomme |
| Year | Film title | Network | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | George & Tammy | Showtime | Miniseries; Four Primetime Emmy Awards nominations. |
Tamara Faye Messner was an American evangelist. She co-founded the televangelist program, The PTL Club with her husband Jim Bakker in 1974. They had hosted their own puppet-show series for local programming in the early 1960s; Messner also had a career as a recording artist. In 1978, she and Bakker built Heritage USA, a Christian theme park.
MTV Entertainment Studios is the film and television production arm of MTV Entertainment Group, a subsidiary of the Paramount Media Networks division of Paramount Global. Founded in 1991 as MTV Productions, it is a consolidation of the former MTV Films group established in 1996 and the MTV Production Development/MTV Studios group of 2003–2021, it has produced original television shows like Beavis and Butt-Head, Æon Flux, Jackass, My Super Sweet 16, Daria, Celebrity Deathmatch, Clone High and The Real World and films such as Election, Joe's Apartment and Napoleon Dynamite. Its films are released by fellow Paramount Global division Paramount Pictures. The MTV Films unit was part of Paramount Players until 2020.
Jessica Michelle Chastain is an American actress and producer. Known for primarily starring in projects with feminist themes, she has received various accolades, including an Academy Award and a Golden Globe, in addition to nominations for two Tony Awards and a Primetime Emmy Award. Time magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2012.
The Eyes of Tammy Faye is a 2000 American documentary film about the life of Tammy Faye Bakker. Directed by Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato, produced by their company World of Wonder, it is narrated by RuPaul Charles.
The 355 is a 2022 American action spy thriller film directed by Simon Kinberg from a screenplay by Theresa Rebeck and Kinberg, and a story by Rebeck. The film features an ensemble cast, starring Jessica Chastain, Penélope Cruz, Fan Bingbing, Diane Kruger, and Lupita Nyong'o as a group of international spies who must work together to stop a terrorist organization from starting World War III. Édgar Ramírez and Sebastian Stan also star. The title is derived from Agent 355, the codename of a female spy for the Patriots during the American Revolution.
The Forgiven is a 2021 crime drama film written and directed by John Michael McDonagh and based on the 2012 novel of the same name by Lawrence Osborne. The film stars Ralph Fiennes, Jessica Chastain, Matt Smith, Ismael Kanater, Caleb Landry Jones, Abbey Lee, Mourad Zaoui, Marie-Josée Croze, Alex Jennings, Saïd Taghmaoui, and Christopher Abbott. Elizabeth Eves and McDonagh produced the film under their House of Un-American Activities label.
Ava is a 2020 American action thriller film directed by Tate Taylor written by Matthew Newton and produced by Chastain's production company, Freckle Films. The film stars Jessica Chastain, John Malkovich, Common, Geena Davis, Colin Farrell, Ioan Gruffudd and Joan Chen.
Love and Monsters is a 2020 American monster adventure film directed by Michael Matthews, with Shawn Levy and Dan Cohen serving as producers. It stars Dylan O'Brien, Jessica Henwick, Dan Ewing, Michael Rooker, and Ariana Greenblatt.
The Eyes of Tammy Faye is a 2021 American biographical drama film directed by Michael Showalter from a screenplay by Abe Sylvia, based on the 2000 documentary of the same name by Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato of World of Wonder. The film tells the story of Tammy Faye Bakker, from her humble beginnings growing up in International Falls, Minnesota, through the rise and fall of her televangelism career and marriage to Jim Bakker. Cherry Jones and Vincent D'Onofrio also star. The film is produced by Chastain's production company, Freckle Films.
Alone is a 2020 American psychological thriller film directed by John Hyams, from a screenplay by Mattias Olsson. The film stars Jules Willcox as a young woman who desperately tries to escape a completely deranged and bloodthirsty psychopath in the wilderness. It was released in the United States on September 18, 2020, by Magnet Releasing.
Scenes from a Marriage is an American drama television miniseries developed, written and directed by Hagai Levi produced for HBO, and starring Oscar Isaac and Jessica Chastain. It is an English-language remake of the 1973 Swedish miniseries of the same name by Ingmar Bergman. It was presented at the 2021 Venice Film Festival and it premiered on September 12, 2021, on HBO. For his performance, Isaac was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award, a SAG Award and a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Miniseries or Television Film, with Chastain also earning a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress in a Limited Series, Anthology Series or Television Film.
Mothers' Instinct is an upcoming American psychological thriller film directed by Benoît Delhomme, a remake of Olivier Masset-Depasse's 2018 French-language film, which itself is an adaptation of the 2012 novel Mothers' Instinct by Barbara Abel. The film stars Jessica Chastain, Anne Hathaway, Josh Charles and Anders Danielsen Lie.
George & Tammy is an American biographical drama television miniseries created by Abe Sylvia and directed by John Hillcoat, which premiered on Paramount Network, Showtime and CMT on December 4, 2022, with Showtime as its primary network. It stars Jessica Chastain and Michael Shannon as country musicians Tammy Wynette and George Jones, chronicling their tumultuous relationship and intertwined careers.
Justin Raleigh is an American make-up artist. He is best known for his work on The Eyes of Tammy Faye, Aquaman, Army of the Dead, Impeachment: American Crime Story, American Horror Story: Freak Show and Westworld.
Linda Dowds is a Canadian-British make-up artist. She is best known for her work on The Eyes of Tammy Faye, True Detective, The Kennedys and Grey Gardens.
Stephanie Ingram is a Canadian make-up artist. She won an Academy Award in the category Best Makeup and Hairstyling for the film The Eyes of Tammy Faye.
The 69th San Sebastián International Film Festival took place from 17 to 25 September 2021 in San Sebastián, Gipuzkoa, Spain. The festival opened with Zhang Yimou's One Second. Marion Cotillard and Johnny Depp were awarded the Donostia Award for lifetime achievements. The Donostia Award bestowed to Johnny Depp was mired by controversy and public scrutiny.
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