PRESS RELEASE
Production businesses Bearcage and Wild Fury have agreed to a merger to create WildBear Entertainment effective 1 January 2014.
WildBear Entertainment will be a broad based production business covering television and film, corporate, educational and government. In addition, a growing footage-based production business will sell original content to a wide range of local and overseas broadcasters.
Following the merger the company will also own Australia’s leading independent provider of archive footage, Absolutely Wild Visuals.
The merged business will produce more than 50 hours of television and film programming in 2014, including expanding Asian activities with recent co-production projects in China including The Story of Australia for CCTV9 and A Tale of Two Cities for Beijing TV and WildFury’s co productions in Malaysia, Coral Triangle and The Wildest River in the world.
The new company will also begin production next month on the feature documentary When the Queen Came to Town, about Queen Elizabeth’s 1954 tour of Australia, which will be released theatrically by Umbrella Entertainment.
Chairman of WildBear Entertainment Hugh Marks said: “ WildBear has an impressive and diverse mix of production specialties from short form video to feature production, domestically and internationally and increasingly focussed on arising opportunities in Asia. As a management team they are creative, innovative and passionate.
“Veronica, Tina and myself are enthusiastically looking forward to the opportunity to work as a team with the highly skilled Bearcage executives”.
CEO of WildBear Entertainment Michael Tear said: “This is an exciting opportunity to combine the unique strengths of Bearcage and Wild Fury into a strong domestic focused business that is looking to build on our combined recent international success to grow the company. I am looking forward to working with the strong management team and to bringing a new enhanced capability to our clients. Serge, Nunzio and myself relish this opportunity to work with the Wild Fury team.”
About Bearcage:
Canberra-based Bearcage is an integrated media production company that has recently expanded into the international sphere with a focus on Asia. The company’s production slate is characterised by narrative driven documentaries and factual series, with a mix of domestic and international broadcasters.
Bearcage, winner of the ACT Chief Minister’s Export Award in the Arts and Entertainment Category in 2012 & 2013 has more than 20 years of experience in production. Recent projects include The Story of Australia a co-production with CCTV9, the ASTRA Award nominated Building Australia, The Boffin, the Builder and the Bombardier, New Zealand From Above and The Digger
About Wild Fury:
Wild Fury is a diversified factual and factual entertainment production company with the integrated footage licensing business Absolutely Wild Visuals. Wild Fury produces documentary feature such as Curse of the Gothic Symphony and Machete Maidens to natural history documentaries such Weapons of the Wild and Ocean’s Supermum, the soon to be telecast factual series Save Your Life Tonight and other series such as Dancing Down Under and My Animal Friends.
About Absolutely Wild Visuals:
The AWV library comprises more than 1 million stock footage shots captured by some of the world's best filmmakers and news gatherers. The AWV footage includes AP Archive, British Movietone, Ron and Valerie Taylor, Essential Media, Howard Hall productions, Channel Nine Getaway, Framepool and more than 50 other individual collections representing science, wildlife, landscapes, aerials, CGI, history and the arts.