PULP FICTION: CITY FILM PRODUCER LEADS DEAL FOR £2M COMIC DEBUT
ITS COMIC potential has been compared to The Full Monty, Kingpin and The Hangover, but it has been made on a shoestring of £2m – and by a former management consultant.
The independent film, Pulp, is the brainchild of Adam Hamdy, who worked at the management consultancy Bridgewater before founding an internet start-up and retiring to the countryside to pursue his dream of becoming a writer on the proceeds of the dot.com company’s sale to an investor two years later.
Giving hope to management consultants everywhere, Hamdy’s debut feature film has been endorsed by Jonathan Ross, after Ross was hooked by the film’s hero Tony Leary, a comic store-owner who will stop at nothing to make his new superhero title, The Sodomizer [sic], a success when it launches at the British International Comic Show.
The film went down a storm when it previewed at the London Film and Comic Convention at the weekend – “people were laughing and, as it is a comedy, we’ll take that as a good sign” said producer Phil Bland – and the next step is to start the talks with UK and US distributors to bring the movie to a global audience.
This is where Hamdy’s City experience becomes useful – with the film just three weeks away from being “100 per cent complete”, Hamdy is going back to his marketing and deal-making roots. “It is amazing how many skills he has retained from his City days, particularly on the commercial side,” said Bland.
ALL THAT JAZZ
JAZZ FM’s “Jazz in the City” show, hosted by Schroders fund manager Andy Brough and Killik partner Paul Kavanagh, is developing a strong City following for its regular Desert Island Discs-style countdown.
There has only ever been one guest who has been able to include a track of himself playing jazz though: John East, the deputy chief executive of Merchant Securities and the Hammond organ player in his band The John East project, who recently included his own contribution on a recording of My Attorney Bernie.
East is tonight playing one of his regular gigs at the 606 Club in Chelsea with his band of Mark Fletcher, Neville Malcolm, Carl Orr, Scott Baylis and Max Grunhard. Come along to Lots Road at 7.30pm to hear their interpretations of “melodic jazz classics”.
ASSET VEHICLES
HAVING trouble borrowing from the banks to fund your latest property deal? No problem – just take the spare Porsche you have sitting in the garage to the pawnbrokers, release some equity and redeem the loan at your leisure when the deal starts to pay out.
Chances are, you won’t be alone. As pawnbroker Cash4mycar tells The Capitalist, City executives are rushing to use their motors to raise short-term asset finance – as the “impressive collection” of classic cars coming through its doors can testify.
It’s a seasonal thing: the Porsches and Bentleys are pawned over the winter and the loan redeemed in the summer when the vehicles are “required for use”. It’s not all about funding new business ventures though – some City owners are simply struggling to pay the school fees…
COFFEE MACHINE
THE EARL of Sandwich cornered the market in brand recall.
But Ross Marshall, the founder of YourGolfTravel, is coming a close second by giving all City golf fans who book for this week’s British Open Championship at Sandwich in Kent a free coffee from Prêt-a-Manger. And, you’ve guessed it, a sandwich.
The promotion is the latest in a string of marketing tricks from the 30-year-old entrepreneur, who set up his business five years ago with a £10,000 credit card loan.
With turnover of £40m and counting, it looks like those quirky tactics are paying off.
DAY OF RECKONING
THE DAY that Goldman Sachs has been dreading is here at last: the day The Devil’s Derivatives, the exposé of the bank that industry commentators describe as “pure dynamite”, goes on sale in the UK.
However, author Nick Dunbar doesn’t restrict himself to Goldman in his morality tale of the “financial card tricks” that led up to the banking crash – the investment banks’ regulators also come under fire.
As Dunbar told The Capitalist on the eve of publication: “When carrying out my research, I was shocked to find how much regulators were under the thumb of the industry they were supposed to be supervising.”