A Return to Hope
“If you pour yourself out for the hungry and care for the afflicted soul, your light will rise in the darkness and your gloom will become as the noonday.”
Isaiah 58:10
For millions of young people today, these are grim times. Depression and suicides have soared to all-time highs, with suicide now the second leading cause of death among young people. Fueling this crisis, the entertainment, music, social media, and gaming industries continue to unleash an unending torrent of dark, disturbing content — saturated with violence, relentless profanity, and the glorification of drugs, alcohol abuse, crime, and criminal lifestyles, especially gang culture. Far from inspiring hope, this onslaught has bred a culture poisoned by fear, anger, mental anguish, and despair — fueling an epidemic of addictions and incarcerations, and leaving in its wake countless broken families, shattered lives, and stolen futures. What young person wouldn’t long to escape such a bleak world? While the corporations reap the profits, our youth are paying the ultimate price.
Meanwhile, another unspeakable tragedy is unfolding. Throughout sub-Saharan Africa and beyond, a holocaust of hunger is claiming young lives on a staggering scale. Each year, more than three million innocent children die excruciating deaths from starvation and malnutrition — at the merciless rate of 8,200 every day. That’s one child every ten seconds. In the time it takes to watch a single movie, another 700 young lives will be extinguished. These aren’t statistics. These are children. Each with a name, a precious face — and dreams, hopes, and a future that will never be lived.
It’s time for a return to hope.
Realm Studios is rising to confront these twin tragedies with a bold new vision — a war on despair. As ambassadors of hope, we will pioneer a new era of powerfully uplifting blockbuster entertainment — extraordinary, universal stories of faith, courage, and redemption that stir the soul, ignite the imagination, and inspire, embolden, and empower audiences around the world. And our mission will not end when the credits roll. We will vigorously deploy box-office profits to wage war against the needless atrocity of child starvation — harnessing the power of entertainment to save young lives.
Blockbuster Entertainment on Indie Budgets
Hollywood has long operated in two distinct production modes: the Studio System and Independent Production.
While the Studios excel at producing high-concept entertainment for global audiences, colossal overspending, extravagant talent deals, exorbitant executive compensation, and towering corporate fee structures drive fully half of all studio films to net losses.
Meanwhile, by aggressively slashing waste, Independent Producers have long generated outsized profits relative to their budgets. As a young indie filmmaker, George Lucas produced the original Star Wars for just $11 million, creating groundbreaking visual effects in a rented warehouse, filming Death Star sequences in a sunlit parking lot, and casting brilliant emerging actors before they commanded A-list salaries (Harrison Ford’s salary: $10,000). Similarly, by seeking out outstanding emerging talent while securing bottom-dollar deals on equipment, locations, and production resources, the legendary Roger Corman produced nearly 400 profitable films while launching the A-list careers of Robert De Niro, Jack Nicholson, James Cameron, Martin Scorsese, and many others — and discovering generations of brilliant cinematographers, production designers, costume designers, editors, and composers.
Yet unlike Lucas, most Independent Producers don’t leverage these methods to produce high-concept entertainment for global audiences; instead, they make modest films for smaller audiences, forfeiting the potential for far greater profits. Until now, the time-tested Studio and Independent models have operated in separate realms, each lacking the other’s formidable strengths.
In a groundbreaking move, Realm is strategically merging the two — engineering waste out of studio-scale production to deliver blockbuster entertainment on cost-driven indie budgets.
Leveling the Playing Field:
Breaking Brilliant Undiscovered Talent
Amy Adams, Angela Bassett, Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, Bradley Cooper, Cameron Diaz, Cate Blanchett, Christian Bale, Denzel Washington, Emma Stone, Halle Berry, Jamie Foxx, Jennifer Hudson, Jennifer Lawrence, Jessica Chastain, Johnny Depp, Julia Roberts, Kate Winslet, Kristen Stewart, Leonardo DiCaprio, Lupita Nyong’o, Margot Robbie, Matthew McConaughey, Meryl Streep, Michael B. Jordan, Morgan Freeman, Nicole Kidman, Pedro Pascal, Renée Zellweger, Samuel L. Jackson, Sandra Bullock, Scarlett Johansson, Timothée Chalamet, Tom Cruise, Tom Hanks, Viola Davis, Will Smith, Zendaya.
Before becoming household names, every one of these A-list artists needed someone in power to recognize their talent and give them a chance. We believe that those in positions of power have an ethical responsibility to pay opportunity forward.
On every production, Realm Studios will actively seek out extraordinary actors, writers, and directors from theater companies, independent feature and short-film festivals, episodic television, print media, music video and commercial productions, and other creative arenas. We’ll likewise seek out and showcase outstanding cinematographers, production designers, costume designers, editors, visual-effects artists, and composers whose talents will shine on the big screen.
Our doors will always be open to established artists, but fame and celebrity will never be prerequisites for opportunity on our films. Our commitment is to break brilliant undiscovered talent — both above and below the line — on every production.
Realm Studios Leadership
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Founder, CEO
Stephen Ashley Blake
Stephen is an award-winning, MTV-nominated filmmaker, producer, and director of photography whose career spans more than four decades and over 200 motion picture, television, commercial, documentary, and music video credits, both domestically and internationally. His work includes productions for Universal, Paramount, Warner Bros., Sony, HBO, ABC, Fox, USA Network, and Samuel Goldwyn Films, as well as music videos for artists including Tupac Shakur, Snoop Dogg, Wu-Tang Clan, LL Cool J, Bono, Public Enemy, Kirk Franklin, Bell Biv DeVoe, Digital Underground, Neil Young, and Chris Rock.
Executive Vice President
Brent Buchanan
Brent’s command of finance, corporate strategy, and large-scale operations anchors Realm Studios’ planned expansion into a global entertainment enterprise. He spearheads investor engagement and strategic partnerships, forging relationships with private investors and institutional capital firms to secure financing for Realm’s full slate of productions. Setting the stage for Phase 2 — the launch of Realm’s own distribution arm — Brent has forged relationships with major exhibitors AMC Theatres, Cinemark, and Regal. In Phase 3, he will direct capital planning, real estate acquisition, and the development and construction of international soundstage and visual-effects facilities. Behind Brent’s leadership stand more than 20 years of directing major engineering, procurement, and construction operations — commanding multimillion-dollar budgets, directing capital-intensive projects, and leading complex negotiations with Fortune 100 corporations and industry giants such as Quanta Services, HDR, Burns & McDonnell, Case New Holland, Hawker Beechcraft, and Bombardier Aerospace.
Producer
Kesha Keely
As Steal Away’s producer and casting director, Kesha brings a keen instinct for story, an exceptional eye for talent, uncompromising artistic judgment, and a bold, unconventional approach to filmmaking. With her finger firmly on the pulse of both emerging and established talent across the entertainment landscape, she spearheaded an international casting call for Steal Away, leveraging social media to attract more than 20,000 auditions worldwide and attaching an extraordinary ensemble of artists to the project. Co-founder of Atlanta-based Sky Casting House, Kesha’s credits span more than a decade of motion picture, television, commercial, and digital media productions.
