Zoe Saldana and sister Cisely Saldana have inked a first-look deal (via their production company Saldana Productions) with Lionsgate Entertainment, which includes content for both TV and film, as the house that Tyler Perry helped build (Lionsgate) seeks to expand its reach into the Latino market (isn’t everyone these days?).
Lionsgate launched Pantelion Films, which will be a Latino-focused Hollywood studio, with Mexico’s Grupo Televisa, and the two have since created English-language TV fare “with Latina flair,” according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The Saldanas will team up with Lionsgate to do the same for both the big and small screen.
“We look forward to a fruitful and productive relationship with Pantelion,” Zoe said in a statement.
In terms of other recent collaborations, last fall, via Saldana Productions, the sisters paired up with Jane Startz Productions and Aida Bernal’s Spellbound Entertainment to bring the mystery/thriller novel Hell Or High Water (the debut novel from Joy Castro) to the screen.
No word on where that project stands currently.
The busy Zoe Saldana will be quite so in the next few years, shooting 3 more Avatar movies, playing the female lead (aka Gamora) in the big screen adaptation of Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy, co-starring in the thriller Out of the Furnace with Christian Bale, and, of course, starring in the much-debated Nina Simone biopic which, as of the time of this post, has yet to debut on the film festival circuit, as I thought it would have by now.
She’s also demonstrated an interest in getting behind the camera to direct. She’s been slowly getting her feet wet, directing episodes of Vin Diesel’s web series The Ropes, last year.
She also helmed one of the shorts that made up the Glamour Reel Moments short film series, which was aimed at increasing the number of women directors in Hollywood.
As for what she might be looking to direct, she hasn’t say explicitly, but last year, she mentioned that she was in the running to direct a film in Montreal, though she was greedy with the details.
