‘Big Gold Brick’ Producer Greg Lauritano Launches Black Magic Banner

EXCLUSIVE : Greg Lauritano ( Big Gold Brick ) today announced the launch of his Brooklyn-based production company, Black Magic , at the same time offering details as to its upcoming slate.

Lauritano is an indie producer who was behind Brian Petsos' directorial debut, Big Gold Brick , starring Andy Garcia, Emory Cohen, Megan Fox, Lucy Hale and Oscar Isaac, which was released via Samuel Goldwyn Films and Arclight Films earlier this year.

The producer's new company is developing projects including stage and film adaptations of Englund's book The Way It's Never Been Done Before , in which he reminisces on his friendship with Marlon Brando. Black Magic has also optioned Kelly Gardiner's Goddess —a gender-bending novel about a swashbuckling female opera singer and fencer in France, which is to be adapted into a limited series with Vera Bulder and Clara McGregor's Deux Dames Entertainment.

"After almost a decade in the industry, I am pleased to be launching my own company, where I can more freely utilize the strong relationships I've developed with incredibly talented artists and executives," said Lauritano. "I'm very excited to be based out of Brooklyn, focusing on the craft side of filmmaking, and exploiting what I feel is actually a healthy distance from the business side of Hollywood."

Lauritano is in post on the romance Mort in Sherman Oaks , starring Keir Gilchrist and Lucy Hale. Also coming up is Andrew Durham's drama Fairyland , which he's producing alongside Sofia Coppola and many others. That film is based on Alysia Abbott's award-winning memoir of the same name about growing up with her single father (widowed poet and gay activist Steve Abbott) during San Francisco's vibrant cultural scene in the 1970s and '80s, up through the AIDS epidemic. Durham adapted the script for the pic starring Emilia Jones, Scoot McNairy, Cody Fern, Bella Murphy, Adam Lambert and Geena Davis.