Viner/Raffin Form New Millennium Entertainment

Posted on March 4, 1998

Michael Viner and Deborah Raffin have announced the formation of New Millennium Entertainment , a diversified production (film/TV) and publishing (hardcover/music) company, headquartered in Beverly Hills, California. Viner is the former President of Dove Entertainment, and Raffin is the former Vice President of Dove Entertainment, and President of Dove Kids, both of which they founded, and subsequently sold controlling interest in, to Media Equities, International. They will function as Co-Presidents of the new company.

Initially, NME will consist of four divisions: TV & film developments, authors' partnerships, NME Books, and NME Music. Audio will follow upon the termination of their current non-compete clause with Dove Entertainment. The film division currently is developing Boy Wonder, by Robert Kaplow, which will be directed by Carl Reiner and produced by Viner/Raffin. Viner and Raffin are also Executive Producers for Dove Entertainment on Futuresport, an ABC Movie Of The Week; a feature film based on the long-time TV series, I Dream of Jeannie, by Sidney Sheldon, has Michael Viner as Executive Producer for Columbia Pictures; another Kaplow project, Why Must I Be A Teenage Vampire in Love, is in preproduction under Producers Viner and Raffin.

The heart of the new publishing company will focus on the publication of classic and current screenplays. New Millennium will announce shortly the first one hundred titles, and is working with various studios and a group of award-winning screenplay writers. Peter Bart will pen the prefaces for the majority of the screenplays, putting them in film history context.

NME authors' partnerships involve arrangements with a number of top-ranked authors to develop their books into film or TV properties, to be produced by NME. Partnerships to date include author of the forthcoming Bantam Book, The Tin Man by Dale Brown, who has had 10 consecutive books ranked on the New York Times' best-seller list; Frederick Forsyth, whose Icon was also a recent bestseller on the New York Times list; and Jack Higgins, author of Luciano's Luck, and a long list of best-sellers. NME has similar arrangements signed or pending with several other major authors. Further, Viner and Raffin have an agreement with Dale Brown to package all of his previous best-sellers.