Australian producer Bruna Papandrea is going it alone.
Papandrea's partnership with Reese Witherspoon, whose production company Pacific Standard she co-founded, has come to an end.
Together, Witherspoon and Papandrea produced David Fincher's Gone Girl, Jean-Marc Vallee's Wild and upcoming HBO miniseries Big Little Lies, based on the novel by Sydney writer Liane Moriarty. Papandrea and Witherspoon recently bought the rights to Moriarty's Truly Madly Guilty to develop as a feature.
Per Deadline, Papandrea is leaving Pacific Standard to start a new venture.
Papandrea recently told Screen Australia that her dream was to make everything, local films and international, in Australia: "I want to be Baz Luhrmann and just make every movie here".
Papandrea has the rights to Melbourne journo Jane Harper's debut crime novel, The Dry, as well as to another Victorian novel, the Toni Jordan romance Addition.
Witherspoon will retain control of Pacific Standard, and the duo will continue to produce the projects they have in development together including Luckiest Girl Alive at Lionsgate/Summit, All Is Not Forgotten at Warner Bros, and Ashley’s War at Fox 2000. They also will continue to work together under Pacific Standard’s overall deal at ABC.
“I’m very proud of the projects that Bruna and I have produced together,” said Witherspoon. “Bruna is a hard-working, extremely talented producer. I’m happy to further collaborate with her on the strong slate of Pacific Standard properties.”
Said Papandrea: “It’s been an amazing five years with Reese. I’m so proud of what the two of us have created together. She’s such a talented and inspiring producing partner and I’m really excited that we’ll continue to collaborate on our many terrific on-going projects.”