Production company setting up shop in PA to produce comic-based features

Producer Jeffrey Erb and entrepreneur Robert Robinson Jr. are launching a production company called Framelight with options already in place for several properties, including Marvel’s Dr. Deth With Kip and Muffy from G.I. Joe author Larry Hama. The company plans to produce six to eight comic-based films during the next five years, according to a story from The Hollywood Reporter.

Other projects in the pipeline include Gary Reed’s Caliber Press and Image Comics zombie series Deadworld, the supernatural thriller Sins of the Fallen and 1001 Arabian Nights from Zenescope Entertainment. Framelight also plans to add video game and toy properties to its list of future film adaptations, according to the report.

Framelight has set up offices in Norristown Studios at Studio Centre, a brand new film production studio in Norristown, Pennsylvania, which includes a 280,000-square-foot site with eight sound studios and high-end post-production facilities. according to local business journal reports, it will be the first major studio to be built in Pennsylvania, since the passage of recent state tax credits to encourage film production.

Erb, who was born in Pottstown, PA, is also the founder and CEO of Feverpitch Pictures, which will co-occupy the Framelight production space, and has already produced the films Just Add Water and The Speed of Life.

Feverpitch will begin production next month on The Storyteller, a fantasy featuring Wes Bentley, Katharine McPhee and Anita Briem, and slated for release in 2009. The film will shoot in and around Philadelphia. The company is also in post-production on Let the Game Begin, written and directed by Amit Gupta. That film was shot in Philly, Los Angeles and Montreal, Canada, and stars Michael Madsen, Stephen Baldwin, Natasha Henstridge, Adam Rodriguez and Ken Davitian from Borat.