Project Greenlight 3, the third edition of the Emmy-nominated behind-the-scenes filmmaking series that formerly aired on HBO, will premiere on Bravo on Tuesday, March 15, 2005 at 9PM ET/PT.
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HBO declined to pickup a third edition of the series following Project Greenlight 2's Summer 2003 broadcast of the production of The Battle of Shaker Heights. The decision put the future of the series in doubt until Bravo, having had already announced plans to team up with Miramax and Greenlight's Magical Elves production company to create its currently-airing Project Runway series, also agreed to sign on for a third Project Greenlight edition.
But after striking out at the box office with two consecutive coming of age dramas (the original Project Greenlight series produced Pete Jones' Stolen Summer), Miramax decided that, similar to HBO, it also needed a better return for its million dollar bankrolling of the production of the show's films. As such, rather than producing another touching and heartfelt independent drama, Project Greenlight 3 chose to focus on a potentially much more commercial (and completely opposite) genre -- the horror film genre in which it has experienced much success via its Dimension Films label (Scream, Halloween, The Others, etc.)
While a decent trailer alone would probably have ensured that, behind-the-scenes bickering or not, Greenlight 3's horror film would shatter the pitiful lifetime box office performances of Stolen Summer ($134,736) and Shaker Heights ($280,351), Miramax didn't just settle for doing a horror film. Instead, they also convinced horror film legend Wes Craven to join its production of the film, a decision that should all but ensure a profitable return on its $1 million production investment.
Entitled Feast and featuring a plot involving an isolated bar ravaged by cannibalistic creatures, Project Greenlight 3's film was written by aspiring screenwriters Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan and will be directed by first time director John Gulager. Over the course of nine one-hour episodes, Project Greenlight 3 will follow Feast through the entire filmmaking process -- from the selection of the script, through production and editing, and ending with the film's eventual release.
Unlike Project Greenlight's first two films, Feast won't have any veteran actors such as Kevin Pollak or Kathleen Quinlan among its cast. Instead, as is both more typical for horror films and a good fit for its shoestring budget, Feast's cast will feature largely unknown talent that counts George Clooney girlfriend Krista Allen (currently appearing in his HBO Unscripted series) as its most recognizable face. In addition to Allen, Feast's other credited cast include Navi Rawat, Henry Rollins, Duane Whitaker, Balthazar Getty, and Jenny Wade.
Project Greenlight 3 is executive produced for Miramax Television by Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, Chris Moore and Sean Bailey of LivePlanet along with Dan Cutforth and Jane Lipsitz of Magical Elves.