Media mogul Elisabeth Murdoch, seasoned exec Stacey Snider, and television producer Jane Featherstone have joined forces and launched a new global content company. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the venture, Sister, will expand upon Featherstone’s Sister Pictures and have offices in Los Angeles and London. Sister’s corporate HQ will be set up in London.
“Sister will harness Snider’s decades-long film experience and Featherstone’s TV background in developing and producing material for a multitude of platforms, including feature films and television,” the source confirms. Murdoch is bankrolling the company.
All three women are co-owners and co-founders of Sister. Murdoch is executive chairman, Snider is global CEO and head of Sister LA, and Featherstone is head of Sister London. Sister Pictures’ producers including Naomi de Pear (“Flowers”) and Katie Carpenter (“The Bisexual”) are also joining the new company.
While Murdoch, Snider, and Featherstone declined to say how many projects Sister is pursuing or their budgets, the trio stressed they have the “independence and confidence to write our own rules, to be bold and bespoke in the choices we make, and to utilize our resources to champion visionary storytellers.” They added, “And to those storytellers we say – come and be brave, come and be rebellious, come and do your best work.”
Despite the name of their company, the founders aren’t planning to exclusively produce women filmmakers’ projects. “We embrace [the name ‘Sister’] much more for its values than its gender meaning,” Murdoch said. “It’s collaborative, it’s joyful, and it means we have each other’s back.”
Among Murdoch’s other business ventures are animation studio Locksmith and mobile video start-up Vertical Networks. She invested in Sister Pictures when it launched in 2014.
Snider previously served as chairman and CEO of 20th Century Fox, where she helped cultivate hits like “The Greatest Showman” and “Bohemian Rhapsody.” Prior to that post, she ran DreamWorks and was Universal Pictures chairman.
Featherstone formerly ran Kudos Productions, which was acquired by Murdoch’s Shine Group in 2007. She eventually became Shine TV chairman and CEO of Kudos, and oversaw production of “Broadchurch,” “Humans,” and “The Hour,” among other series. Her most recent producing credits include “Chernobyl,” for which she won an Emmy, and “The Split.”