EXCLUSIVE: Maude Apatow and Olivia Rosenbloom have partnered to launch Jewelbox Pictures, a film and television production company with an eye towards bold and complex human stories, which already has three films in development.
As the duo tells Deadline, they came to launch a shingle together as best friends who have been working together since high school. “We have both always been drawn to flawed and complicated characters and using comedy as a tool to tell their stories,” Apatow and Rosenbloom stated. “We are so excited to launch Jewelbox and hope it can be a home for artists with distinct voices and perspectives to develop compelling original ideas.”
First up for development on Jewelbox’s slate is Poetic License, which will mark Apatow’s feature directorial debut. Written by Raffi Donatich, the film watches as two inseparable best friends, Sam and Ari, start to unravel as they compete for the affection of Liz, the middle-aged mom auditing their college poetry workshop.
Apatow came to the project after finding herself “instantly taken” with Donatich’s “grounded writing style,” as someone who writes characters and dialogue “with so much love, depth, and humor.” The film, she said, “encapsulates the pressures of growing up, and how those pressures don’t necessarily ever go away. It’s a coming-of-age story for all ages. I think this movie is universal, timeless and has the potential to be something very special. I couldn’t be more excited to bring it to life.” Producers of the indie will include Apatow, Josh Church, Rosenbloom, and Harrison Kreiss for Jewelbox Pictures and Apatow Productions.
Jewelbox has also optioned How to Murder Your Life, written by Cat Marnell, a candid and darkly humorous memoir of prescription drug addiction and self-sabotage, set in the glamorous world of fashion magazines and downtown nightclubs. Marnell will serve as an executive producer of the film adaptation. Currently, the company is also attached to produce the film Female Friendship, with an eye toward Apatow starring. Written and to be directed by Emily Rappaport, the film follows two lifelong best friends who attempt to untangle their merged identities when one undergoes a female-to-male gender transition. Michael P. Cohen and Lena Dunham’s Good Thing Going is also aboard to produce.
Currently starring as Lexi Howard on HBO’s hugely acclaimed teen drama series Euphoria, Apatow has also been seen in the Emmy-nominated Netflix miniseries Hollywood from Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan, as well as a number of her father Judd Apatow’s films, including Pete Davidson starrer The King of Staten Island. Last year making her professional stage debut off-Broadway in Little Shop of Horrors, she followed that performance up with a turn as Sally Bowles in a West End production of Cabaret.
With a background in documentary film, Rosenbloom co-produced Peacock’s Stormy Daniels doc Stormy, which recently premiered at SXSW. Additionally, she co-produced the doc Bob and Don: A Love Story, on the life-long friendship between iconic comedians Bob Newhart and Don Rickles, and was an associate producer on HBO’s Unveiled: Surviving La Luz del Mundo.
Apatow is repped by UTA, Mosaic and Ziffren Brittenham