Skip to content
Link copied to clipboard

Christina Weiss Lurie launches new Hollywood film company

The Philadelphia Eagles co-owner and indie film and documentary producer is developing more commercial fare with her new L.A.-based company, Tango Pictures.

Christina Weiss Lurie has some big news, and it's not about Chip Kelly moving here from Eugene. The co-owner of the Philadelphia Eagles has long been involved in movie-making – she executive produced Inside Job, the 2011 Academy Award documentary nominee. And this year, the documentary short Oscar contender,  "Inocente," a 40-minute film about a homeless high school girl in San Diego, also bears Lurie's name. She executive produced the acclaimed film through Screen Pass Pictures, the non-profit she established with her ex, Jeffrey Lurie.

But now, having also worked in low-budget independents through her Vox3 Films, Lurie is setting her sites on bigger, more commercial ventures.

"I am trying to go Hollywood," Lurie says with a laugh, reached on the phone the day the Oscar nominations were announced. "It's always interesting to try to do new things, and... not that I've cornered the indie, small-budget film market, but I did that, and now I want to try something else."

That something else is called Tango Pictures, which Lurie started with partners Steven Shainberg and Andrew Lazar last year. Based in Los Angeles, Tango is developing, among other projects, Bedbugs, an adaptation of Ben H. Winters' horror novel (yes, it's about bedbugs) published by Philly's Quirk Books. Ti West (The Innkeeper) is attached to direct.

"Our mission is commercial," Lurie explains. "And commercial can be low budget, it can be a studio film, it can be an indie psychological horror film-- that's all to be determined. So we'll see how successful we are. We hope to make our first film this spring."

Steven Rea is the Inquirer's movie critic.