Emma Cooper.
Emma Cooper has been hired by Playmaker Media as the firm’s Los Angeles-based executive producer and has joined the board of Australians in Film.
Cooper’s Playmaker role adds her to her production slate and her role as the head of global endorsement and branding agency ICR, which she founded 10 years ago.
Sony-owned Playmaker’s latest project is Reckoning, a 10-part psychological thriller commissioned by Sony’s channels in Europe and Latin America.
Currently she is developing the feature film Penguin Bloom, co-producing with Naomi Watts (who will also star), Bruna Papandrea and Reese Witherspoon.
Shaun Grant (The True History of the Kelly Gang, Jasper Jones) has written the script based on the best-selling book by Cameron Bloom and Bradley Trevor Greive.
The plot follows Cameron and Sam Bloom and their three boys whose world is turned upside down when Sam falls off a balcony while on vacation in Thailand, leaving her paralysed from the chest down.
As the family struggles to adjust they find an unlikely ally in the form of an injured Magpie chick which the Bloom clan calls Penguin. The book was published in April in the US as Penguin the Magpie.
Cooper’s appointment to the AiF board is for three years. The board has also given a one-year extension to the chair Simonne Overend, VP of drama development at Essential Media and Entertainment, and to president Kate Marks, executive VP of international production at Ausfilm.
Overend said today: “Emma brings an extraordinary level of experience and a fresh perspective to brand, celebrity, marketing and event management to AiF at a crucial time for the organisation’s growth.”
Cooper added: “I’m thrilled to be joining a team that not only supports Australian talent in Hollywood but helps those voices reach a global audience.”
Writer Stuart Beattie and talent manager Rob Marsala have been reappointed as board members for three years.
Beattie scripted Danger Close, Kriv Stenders’ drama which chronicles the heroics of Australian and New Zealand soldiers in the Battle of Long Tan in the Vietnam War.
Starring Travis Fimmel, Luke Bracey, Richard Roxburgh and Daniel Webber, the film started shooting in Queensland today.