I’m ready for my closeup, Mr. Allon?
Compass co-founder Ori Allon is getting into the movie business. The tech entrepreneur, who has sold startups to Twitter and Google, inked a deal with Israel’s Keshet Studios to develop and finance movies, Variety reported.
According to the publication, Allon and Keshet execs made an appearance at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, last month to hunt for scripts and to scout talent.
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Allon, who co-founded Compass with Robert Reffkin in 2012, sold his software company, Orion, to Google and was a director of engineering at Twitter. He launched White Lodge Productions in 2018 with the goal of churning out content that “taps into the changing technological landscape of the media world,” according to marketing materials.
He told Variety, “Technology continues to evolve and is changing how we consume information.” With Keshet, White Lodge is looking to work with writers who will “enthusiastically embrace the modern and expanding media landscape to create smart and innovative content.”
Keshet is based in Los Angeles and is the U.S. arm of the Israeli media company with the same name. The studio is behind films including “Save Yourselves” and “The Sound of Silence.”
New York-based Compass has raised more than $1.5 billion from investors, including SoftBank. Valued at $6.4 billion, it has more than 300 offices around the country with around 15,500 agents and 2,500 employees. Last month, it laid off 40 staffers as part of a reorganization that consolidates roles that service agents. [Variety] — E.B. Solomont