Ryan Gosling & Ken Kao form Arcana production label, announce first project

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

Golden Globe winner and Academy Award-nominated actor and star of the upcoming sci-fi sequel BLADE RUNNER 2049 Ryan Gosling and producer Ken Kao (THE NICE GUYS) have joined forces to form Arcana. The production company will focus on finding and developing a wide range of unique and diverse material for film and television.

As per the press release we'd received this afternoon:

As a way of christening the new film and television banner, Arcana’s first official project is director Yorgos Lanthimos’ upcoming film THE FAVOURITE, with Emma Stone, Rachel Weisz and Olivia Colman set for starring roles. That project has just recently wrapped principal photography in the UK. The story is based on a Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara script that follows the clandestine personal and political machinations of the reign of Queen Anne, the last monarch of the House of Stuarts. Lanthimos just won best screenplay in Cannes for THE KILLING OF A SCARED DEER and received a Best Screenplay Oscar nomination for THE LOBSTER. Arcana has partnered with producers Ceci Dempsey for Scarlet Films and Ed Guiney and Lee Magiday for Element Pictures, together with Film4 and Fox Searchlight.

Gosling and Kao’s partnership follows closely after their recent collaborations on Shane Black’s detective thriller, THE NICE GUYS and Terrence Malick’s SONG TO SONG. The duo also previously announced the acquisition of Jeff Lemire's highly-acclaimed graphic novel THE UNDERWATER WELDER, which they are developing for screen alongside Anonymous Content.

In addition to Arcana, Kao will continue to run his Waypoint Entertainment production banner and BLOOM with partner Alex Walton. Kao’s production slate includes: Scott Cooper’s HOSTILES starring Christian Bale and Rosamund Pike; Martin Zandvliet’s THE OUTSIDER starring Jared Leto; Destin Daniel Cretton’s THE GLASS CASTLE starring Woody Harrelson, Brie Larson, and Naomi Watts; and Woody Harrelson's LOST IN LONDON, the first feature film ever broadcast live, starring Harrelson and Owen Wilson. Waypoint Entertainment also recently acquired the rights to bestselling and award-winning author Jeff Lemire and illustrator Emi Lenox's comic series Plutona as well as Mark Millar properties, American Jesus and Supercrooks.

This is all some very impressive and exciting stuff, and I'm very much looking forward to the Jeff Lemire-based projects, personally. THE UNDERWATER WELDER is an incredibly emotional Twilight Zone-like science fiction drama, while PLUTONA is something akin to STAND BY ME with a defunct superhero bent. If either project remains true to the source material, we could have two very inticing films to look forward to from Arcana, down the line.