Wieden in the Movies

Co-Produces ABC Film With @radical.media
LOS ANGELES–As part of an ongoing effort to provide creative outlets for its employees beyond advertising, Wieden & Kennedy is co-producing through its entertainment unit a two-hour movie for ABC television titled Hurricane Season.
Bill Davenport, managing director of the agency’s Portland, Ore., headquarters and keen on movie producing, is serving as an executive producer on the project, along with Jon Kamen and Frank Scherma, co-principals of global production company @radical.media. The two companies have collaborated on Nike ads for nearly a decade. Wieden’s Bedonna Smith is overseeing development and production of the movie.
“Someone in our agency saw the story and brought it to our attention a few years ago,” said Davenport. “We think the idea rings true to what we’ve been doing for Nike and ESPN.”
Hurricane Season is based on the best-selling Madeleine Blais book In These Girls, Hope is a Muscle, chronicling the Amherst (Mass.) High School girls basketball team’s 1992-93 championship season. The story originally appeared as a piece in The New York Times Magazine.
“We’ve witnessed that some of the most inspirational stories in women’s sports are happening at the high school level,” Davenport said.
Wieden has supported other staffers’ extracurricular endeavors, including one writer’s socially conscious graphic novel.
Hurricane Season is expected to be the first of several joint entertainment projects by Wieden and @radical.media. K