Mike Fleming

EXCLUSIVE: Voltage Pictures chief Nicolas Chartier is branching out from foreign sales into the production game. He has partnered with longtime Hollywood Gang executive Craig Flores to form Voltage Productions, an offshoot of Voltage Pictures that will generate large pictures set at studios, and films in the $15 million-$40 million budget range that will be funded through a combination of pre-sales, debt and equity. The latter formula is the one that the French producer employed to fund the Kathryn Bigelow-directed The Hurt Locker–which brought him a Best Picture Academy Award–and the recently wrapped William Friedkin-directed Killer Joe, which stars Matthew McConaughey. Chartier’s best known, of course, for being dis-invited to the Oscars–he got his trophy later–after sending e-mails lobbying for his film. Many in Hollywood rallied behind him, even throwing him a viewing party thrown by WME Global’s Graham Taylor, and producers Mike Fleiss and Lynette Howell in Malibu.

Flores, who entered the business as an attorney, spent the past eight years with Gianni Nunnari’s Warner Bros-based Hollywood Gang. Flores will remain an exec producer on projects he developed with Nunnari that include the upcoming the Tarsem Singh-directed Immortals, and adaptations of Frank Miller’s Ronin, the Conn Iggulden Julius Caesar novel series that’ll be directed by Burr Steers, and a Mexico City-set thriller being scripted by Gravity co-writer Jonas Cuaron. Flores was exec producer on Hollywood Gang pics 300 and Everybody’s Fine.

Said Chartier: “Craig and I have wanted to work together for a long time. As he expressed interest in building a company, I wanted to partner with him to develop and package bigger films we could set up at studios and  eventually have the option of being involved in international sales and co-financing through Voltage Pictures. As we grow, we’ll produce and finance some films, co-finance others, and others we’ll straight sell as a sales agent. I wanted to have the option to try different projects in the marketplace.”