FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SAN DIEGO—Independent filmmaker Michael Steven Gregory has been tapped by Mnemosyne Pictures to direct its debut outing, Armageddon Jones. Being written by the team of Gregory and Anna Gilson, details of the screenplay are a closely guarded secret.

For Gregory, president of San Diego-based Random Cove, the deal renews hope for sustaining quality feature-length film production locally. “For nearly 20 years I’ve remained based here with the belief that one breakthrough vehicle could demonstrate the diverse talent and terrain unique to our city and the potential of our indie filmmakers; a movie that could do for us what Spike Lee’s She's Gotta Have It did for Brooklyn, Barry Levinson’s Diner did for Baltimore, or Gus Van Sant’s Drugstore Cowboy did for Portland,” said Gregory. “I was about to give up and move to L.A.—was literally looking at places to live—when I was approached by Mnemosyne and found others who share that same vision.”

The picture will mark the narrative feature debut of Gregory as a director, who has in the past been called in to help other directors launch their first projects yet found himself time and again thwarted from a film of his own. “We were close once in the early 90s, but two weeks before shooting the [production company] imploded and a lot of good people got stung. After that, I got very cautious about committing to a project that requires the kind of faith, favors and friendships that must be relied upon in order to make the sort of movie of substance and quality, or at least the sort of movie I’m interested in making, on an indie level successfully. Mnemosyne is granting us a chance to do what we should have done a long time ago.”

Last week it was announced that Gregory’s screenplay 'Long Came Charlie was optioned by actor Dustin Hoffman’s company, Punch Productions (Tootsie, Mad City, Wag the Dog, The Devil's Arithmetic, Walk on the Moon), while the polish of his and Gilson’s latest spec property, a romantic comedy, is eagerly anticipated.

>> Learn more about Michael Steven Gregory
>> Learn more about Anna Gilson

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