Virgin launches film, TV production company

11:11 AM PDT 10/14/2010 by Georg Szalai, AP

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Virgin Produced inks joint venture with Rogue Pictures

NEW YORK -- Richard Branson is ready to go Hollywood with the help of Ryan Kavanaugh.

"Create. Package. Provoke." That is a tagline found on the website of Branson's Virgin Group, which on Friday unveiled Virgin Produced, its new film and TV development, packaging and production company.

It will be led by former J2TV/J2 Pictures producers Jason Felts as CEO and Justin Berfield as chief creative officer.

Based in L.A., it promises nothing short of wanting of wanting "to break the mold of Old Hollywood by providing a collaborative environment that embraces talent so they can best create and inspire."

Importantly, Virgin Produced has struck a joint venture with Kavanaugh's Relativity Media's Rogue Pictures to develop, produce and market films.

"For 40 years, Virgin has pushed the envelope," Felts said. "With Rogue's boundary breaking approach and Virgin's entrepreneurial strength, the brands are perfectly suited for each other."

"Virgin has always been about doing it your way, expressing oneself through innovation," said Relativity CEO Kavanaugh. "It dares to be different. We believe that their approach to film is suited to do just that, and pairing the Virgin and Rogue brands together to create innovation couldn't be more natural."

"Entertainment has long been a focus of the Virgin brand, and I'm excited for the chance to further grow in this space," said Branson.

In addition to developing and producing original films, it is expected that Virgin will co-produce two to three movies a year with Relativity/Rogue, allowing the studio to use Virgin's marketing capabilities. The first film in this collaboration will be Peter Farrelly's latest.

VirginProduced.com shows off some of the approach and rogue attitude the company plans to take.

Under a section called P.O.V., it says: "Virgin Produced is a new kind of production company. One that is creative, not controlling. One that refuses to cut corners and doesn't use money to buy your love. One that has faith in its projects. Virgin Produced very simply has balls, and we're not afraid to show them. In fact, we're gonna go ahead and apologize ahead of time. You might see our balls. Our bad."

And the site's section containing executive bios is titled "Suits" and even mentions how hardworking and sexy the firm's assistants are.