Mike Fleming

EXCLUSIVE: Platinum Dunes partners Michael Bay, Brad Fuller, and Andrew Form have moved their genre-making production company to WME. It’s a return to the fold after moving from  WME and spending the last year at CAA. WME reps Bay as a director.
The move comes at a time when Platinum Dunes is moving into bigger budget fare  after signing a first-look deal at Paramount Pictures. On their first seven films, Platinum Dunes averaged $18 million per film; the priciest was $30 million. They’ve had an enviable track record for covering their bets. Six of those films grossed their budgets on opening weekends, and two did so on opening night. Most were remakes of fright classics like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Amityville Horror, The Hitcher, Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street.

They’ll probably spend at least three times their highest budget rebooting Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, for which they just hired Iron Man scribes Art Marcum and Matt Holloway for a film the studio expects to be a tent pole-sized film on its 2012 release calendar. They are also making Ouija at Universal based on the Hasbro board game. Also at Paramount, Platinum Dunes is developing Upgrade, based on a pitch from Smallville creators Alfred Gough and Miles Millar; there is a sci-fi alien project for Bobby Glickert to direct at around a $12 million budget, and they are remaking the 1987 film Monster Squad. Bay, of course, is working on a third installment of Transformers for the studio.