EXCLUSIVE: Range Media Partners has signed Bertie, the highly sought-after writer-director otherwise known as Katie Ellwood, who has been behind such titles as Hawkeye and Troop Zero, and has a top-notch dance card looking ahead.
Known for tonally specific work which is darkly comic, full of humanity and frequently action-packed, Bertie recently teamed with frequent collaborator Bert (aka Amber Templemore-Finlayson) to direct three well-received episodes of Marvel’s Hawkeye starring Jeremy Renner.
Bert & Bertie have also jointly directed on HBO’s Our Flag Means Death, as well as Showtime’s Kidding starring Jim Carrey, Apple TV+’s sci-fi thriller Silo starring Rebecca Ferguson, and Hulu’s Emmy-winning historical satire The Great, starring Elle Fanning. The pair made their feature directorial debut with the Amazon Studios dramedy Troop Zero, starring Academy Award winners Viola Davis and Allison Janney, which world premiered as the closing film of the 2019 Sundance Film Festival before debuting globally on Prime Video.
Bert & Bertie just finished directing the pilot for The Walking Dead: Rick & Michonne starring Andrew Lincoln and Danai Gurira, also helming multiple episodes of Lessons in Chemistry, starring Brie Larson, for Apple TV+.
Up next on the film side for Bertie, who comes from a video game background at Sony Computer Entertainment, is Big Thunder Mountain, which she and Bert will direct for Disney, with Scott Free and LuckyChap Entertainment producing. The film, based on the iconic Disney theme park ride Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, which takes place in a mining town amid the gold rush of the 1800s, watches as the town is hit by a natural disaster. Bertie is additionally attached to solo direct the cybercrime action thriller Gargoyle, written by Christy Hall, for Netflix, with 21 Laps producing.
Bertie has additionally penned a fantastical biopic, charting the adventures of Olympic swimmer-turned-Hollywood-icon Esther Williams through the LSD trip she took in 1958, which she will look to direct. The multi-hyphenate continues to be represented by Verve and The Nord Group.