Mike Fleming

Syfy Ventures and Universal Pictures have teamed to create Syfy Films, a film company that will generate theatrical films that will be branded by the Syfy label and will be distributed by Universal. The hope is to leverage Syfy’s genre experience in science fiction, fantasy, supernatural, and horror. The plan is to begin generating two movies per year by 2012.

The venture will be announced today by Dave Howe, president of Syfy and Chiller, Mark Stern, the exec veep of original programming and co-head of content for Universal Cable Productions, and Universal Pictures chairman Adam Fogelson and co-chairman Donna Langley.

“We know there is an incredible consumer appetite for genre content as proven by the top grossing box office films,” Howe and Stern said in a statement. “Partnering our brand with the theatrical talent of Universal Pictures, a premier motion picture company, will allow us to exploit our combined expertise and resources to create commercially successful quality films that have the potential to become great franchises for the whole company.”

Stern and Langley will jointly oversee the new venture, and they are looking to hire a production executive who’ll be based on the Universal lot. The exec will find project and leverage Syfy’s creative relationships developed through the NBC Universal network that launched in 1992 as the Sci Fi Channel. and has broadened into a website and Syfy Ventures.

“Syfy has been incredibly successful in finding ways to produce compelling entertainment for a specific audience,” Fogelson and Langley said in a statement. “Joining together to find moderately budgeted projects that we can develop using their expertise and their brand is a great opportunity for both of our companies.”

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