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Need to know:<\/strong>\u00a0 Actor Jude Law and his business partner Ben Jackson set up Riff Raff Entertainment in 2017\u00a0 after first meeting in a pub in Primrose Hill, London in 2000. They have built it into a small but serious production company, producing Harry\u00a0Wootliff\u2019s<\/span>\u00a0TrueThings<\/em>\u00a0in 2021 and securing investment from Calculus Capital in 2022. The revved-up Riff Raff squeezed in Justin Kurzel\u2019s The Order<\/em> before the US writers\u2019 and actors\u2019 strikes in 2023, and shot TV series Black Rabbit<\/em> for Netflix when the industry returned to work.<\/p>\n Further support comes from a first-look deal with Anton and Studio TF1 for film, and with Newen Connect for TV.\u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s win-win for us,\u201d says Jackson of the deal with the interconnected companies, all with different remits.\u00a0\u201cWe can take a project to them and they can put it with the team that likes the project.\u201d<\/p>\n The company now has a diverse development slate of writer-driven projects and is aiming to open a Los Angeles office.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re hoping to expand through the involvement and the tastes of the people who are leading the development team,\u201d says Law. \u201cNurturing other people\u2019s ideas and passions is key to our long-term survival. There\u2019s only so much I can do or get done.\u201d<\/p>\n The Calculus investment does not have a time limit, but the aim is a third-party acquisition of Riff Raff, says Jackson.\u00a0<\/p>\n Of the producers with whom Law has worked over the years, he cites Element Films\u2019\u00a0 Ed Guiney, and the late Sydney Pollack and Anthony Minghella as people whose producing style he admires.\u00a0\u201cThere was such a familial, inclusive warmth to the way Sydney\u00a0and Anthony operated,\u201d says Law, who starred in Minghella\u2019s\u00a0The\u00a0Talented Mr Ripley and Cold Mountain,\u00a0<\/em>both produced by Pollack and Minghella\u2019s Mirage Enterprises. \u201cIt was the first time I recognised just what a team effort filmmaking was.\u201d<\/p>\n Key personnel:<\/strong> Jude Law, Ben Jackson, founders and producers; Stephen Fuss, CEO;\u00a0Katie Sinclair, head of development;\u00a0Lionelle Galloppa, development executive.\u00a0<\/p>\n Incoming:\u00a0<\/strong>Sharon Horgan\u2019s first feature screenplay, a drama about a couple set in contemporary London in which Law will star. The project, which has the working title of 25 Scenes<\/em>, is now out to a female co-star and a director. Law has a window in summer 2026 to shoot the film.<\/p>\n The Whole World Is Watching <\/em>is\u00a0based on a script by Challengers and Queer<\/em> writer Justin Kuritzkes. Set in the\u00a0US in 1968, it is a drama that takes place against the backdrop of the debates between writers Gore Vidal and William F Buckley Jr. Law will star in the film which is inspired by the\u00a0Robert Gordon and Morgan Neville\u2019s 2015 documentary\u00a0Best Of Enemies,\u00a0<\/em>to which Law bought the feature adaptation rights.<\/p>\n Head of development Sinclair\u2019s relationship with writers has yielded scripts from Joe Hampson (Feelgood)<\/em> and Laura Carreira (On Falling<\/em>), while Malcolm Campbell is writing a script called Volatiles <\/em>based on a piece of IP acquired by Riff Raff about the true story of a woman called Joy Milne who realised she could smell Parkinson\u2019s when her husband was diagnosed with the disease. She is now developing a test for it with Manchester University.<\/p>\n The goal is to make projects that do not involve Law as an actor. \u201cWe always knew he would be leading us out of the gate, but now we feel we are out of the gate,\u201d as Jackson puts it.\u00a0\u00a0\u201cWe\u2019re not just a vehicle for Jude, we\u2019re not one at all. He doesn\u2019t need one in order to work. He does it because he loves it.\u201d<\/p>\n One of those projects will be the next film from US director India Donaldson, whose debut\u00a0feature Good One<\/em> was<\/span>\u00a0at Sundance and Cannes in 2024. She is writing and\u00a0directing Fireworks<\/em><\/span>\u00a0Every Night,<\/em> set in 1990s Florida, based on a novel of the same name.\u00a0<\/p>\n And Jackson has originated a feature idea he pitched\u00a0to The<\/em><\/span>\u00a0Order<\/em>\u00a0and Black Rabbit<\/em> co-creators<\/span>\u00a0Zach Baylin and Kate Susman, a \u201c90-minute thrill ride\u201d in the spirit of the tight, muscular films of the 1970s and 80s.\u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s about a retired getaway driver who thinks he\u2019s done, but he has to do one more job, and get from A to B to C,\u201d Jackson explains. \u201cObviously, it doesn\u2019t go according to plan.\u201d<\/p>\n TV projects include a series about two female detectives, being developed with\u00a0the BBC, and a script by Whit Anderson based on Ellory Lloyd\u2019s novella \u2018The Club\u2019 about the wealthy members of a private club who start dying off, for Hulu.<\/p>\n Jude Law says:<\/strong>\u00a0\u201cThe most important element of the job I do at the company is to encourage and to enable other people. I don\u2019t know how to line produce, I don\u2019t know how to design a film, I don\u2019t know how to write a film. But I know people who do.\u00a0I like them and I believe in them, and I like to be able to put them in a situation where they can do their job.<\/p>\n \u201dThe next step, and what could be the most exciting step, is attaching actors and directors to these projects who are inspired and excited by the projects in the same way that I am and allowing them to lead the piece.\u201d<\/p>\n Contact:<\/strong>\u00a0admin@riffraffentertainment.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n