By Kenn Gold

Jordan Yale Levine, at the age of 24, holds the distinction of being one of the youngest film/television producers in the Hollywood game. Under his Fylmar Productions, 2009/2010 are shaping up to be his most successful years with the release of two new films: Mo, the story about a kid who wants to be cool and fit in and be like everyone else.  When Mo's looks at his body he sees that he doesn't quite resemble any of his peers. His family soon discovers that he suffers from a genetic mutation called "Marfan Syndrome.” Mo is then forced to come to terms with a more serious reality. The movie stars Erik Per Sullivan (Malcolm in the Middle) and Margo Martindale (Dexter/ Hannah Montana: The Movie) and is directed and produced by Brian Scott Lederman.  The second is the horror thriller, Wreckage (October 31, 2009).  The film stars Cameron Richardson (Harper’s Island), Aaron Paul (Breaking Bad/Mission Impossible III), Mike Erwin (Hulk/American Pie 2) and is directed by John Mallory Asher (Dirty Love/One Tree Hill) and is about a Gulf War veteran and his three friends get stranded in a deserted auto wreckage yard and soon find themselves hunted by someone who they think may be an escaped killer.

In addition, Jordan will soon start production on indie feature The Land of the Astronauts which stars David Arquette, Vivica A. Fox, Kurupt, Diamond Dallas Page, and Scott Eastwood. The film is a psychological drama that tells the story of a man, Jack McKenzie (Arquette) who is trying to rebuild his world. Once a former hotshot screenwriter, he now has to take a demeaning job as a limo driver to support his family and slowly begins to lose control of the one thing he values most... his mind.  He also recently completed his first role as an actor in the sequel to 2001 Maniacs.

In addition, Jordan has also managed the careers of two high-profile personalities; platinum recording artist Obie Trice and former WWE wresting star Ernest "The Cat" Miller. In fact, it was Jordan who was responsible for the casting of "The Cat" as "The Ayatollah" in Darren Aronofsky's twice Oscar nominated film The Wrestler.  He recently took time out from a very busy schedule to answer questions about his growing career.

MediaBlvd> How did you get started in the business at such a young age?

Jordan> A very good family friend of mine, financed the movie The Illusionist, with Ed Norton, Jessica Biel, and Paul Giomotti.  After high school, I came to LA to kind of learn the ropes that summer.  I had such a good time, I decided to skip out on college and my parent’s wishes and permanently move to LA and open up my own company.  I started my company back in ’05 with my business partner, Frank O’Sama, and we kind of learned the ropes of producing ourselves, by doing it all day, every day for 5 years now?

MediaBlvd> Was there a certain moment that summer when you said this is what I want to do?  Did it come together all at once?

Jordan> That summer, I had such a good time.  I was around to go to the press junkets for the film, and to take meetings and learn what the people on that film were going through going through the financing structure and the distribution.  It excited me.  I was always very into the business side of things.  Instead of going to college and going through the traditional route of reading books and taking classes, I always knew that I was much better at learning by just doing it; by doing it myself all day, everyday, and by having literally thousands of meetings now, I was able to pick it up.

MediaBlvd> How many films has your company done, so far?

Jordan> I’ve executive produced eight movies so far.  In September, I’m the main producer on a film called “Land of the Astronaut”.  And we’re in discussion right now with David Arquette to star in the picture.  This is the first time that I’m actually full on producing, as opposed to executive producing. 

MediaBlvd> How much does it cost to make an independent film on average?

Jordan> They all vary.  The film that we are doing possibly with David Arquette, the film is going to be around one to two million.  Our last picture, Tooth and Nail, that was in theatres with David Madsen, Denny Jones and Rachael Miner and Rider Strong, that film cost upwards of four million.  So they range.  We did a movie for half a million, and the highest was up around four or five mil. 

MediaBlvd> When you were starting out, was it difficult to have people take you seriously with your age?  Did they discount you at first?

Jordan> Yeah, the thing was that actually was good for me.  I had a lot of anger in the beginning.  My partner is my parent’s age, he’s 51, I love him to death and he’s my best friend.  At the beginning, because all I was basically a 19 year old punk in these people’s eyes, and I was asking them literally for millions of dollars to invest in my movies, all of the focus of the attention would literally be on my business partner.  And that just angered me.  So what I was able to do was I always jumped in and spoke.  I always did the pitching.  I always did the explaining to get people to look at me because I was just frustrated.  People thought I was possibly my partner’s assistant, and that wasn’t the case whatsoever.  We’ve always been 50/50.  So that’s the way that I learned, because I was so frustrated with people not taking me serious because of my age.

MediaBlvd> Is it getting better now that you’ve had some success?

Jordan> Yeah, now, it’s not even an issue.  I honestly look back at it and laugh.  Now being 24, and I feel like people come to meet with us, when they come into our office, they’ve already done research on who I am, on who my company is, and what I’ve done.  So no one gives me any form of disrespect at all.  Now, I’m very respected and it’s as easy as looking me up on Google or IMDB.  From there, the credits talk for themselves.

MediaBlvd> Without giving away any trade secrets, how do you succeed in getting something financed, where others might have failed, or are maybe not doing as well?

Jordan> I feel like we are very conservative in our methods.  What I mean by that, is that we look at each picture like a mathematical formula.  You pick the right genre of movie, you have the right name attachment, you shoot in the right location and have the right crew.  You put all these pieces together, and you are not going to loose money.  If you have the right cast and the right budget, you are going to make sure you get your money back.  Sometimes people don’t want to go straight to DVD, but if you have to, it’s fine.  Whether you go theatrical, or you go DVD, just make sure the cast can constitute the budget, and you’ll be fine. 

MediaBlvd> When you went to Hollywood, you probably had a pretty idealistic notion of what it was going to be like.  What experiences have you had there that are maybe different or surprised you the most about how it actually is, compared to how you thought it would be?

Jordan> When people call this industry cutthroat, it really is.  Being out here by myself for the last five years and being in this business…  Growing up, I got tough very quickly.  I had the crazy experiences that you only hear about, and that you literally see in movies.  Unless you are in the business doing it all day, everyday, you’d never know.  Some of my stories really shock people when I tell them about it. 

MediaBlvd> Can you tell us any of those?

Jordan> Yeah, sure, I’ll give you a crazy story.  We were working at one point with a gentleman who was a producer and financier.  He was actually friends with the drummer of the band, Limp Bizkit.  One night I was invited to go over to the premiere of The Inside Man, with Denzel Washington and before the premiere, I had to go down to the drummer’s house, and it wasn’t in the best area.  I had to go meet everybody there, and the purpose of going out that night was to schmooze some people, and meet some financiers and get them interested in investing in my project.  So that’s what we do sometimes, we go out and meet with different people and get them excited about our company and projects outside of the office environment.  When I ended up at the house, not knowing the area too much, I was new to town being from New York, somebody popped out from the back yard and knocked on my window.  In his own words, the guy asked me if I was in a gang, but not knowing the verbiage of what this guy was asking, I didn’t understand him correctly.  He was upset with me that I didn’t know what he was talking about and pulled a gun on me.  That ended the night, and I was able to luckily get out of there and drive back home.  But I’ve never been involved with someone putting a gun to my head, not knowing what he was talking about.  That was literally just because I was going to an area I didn’t know about, following through on a commitment to my business.  That’s just one of the many stories.

MediaBlvd> Where do you see Fylmar going in the next 5 or 10 years?

Jordan> Our company is definitely progressing in our budgets and in our films.  As I mentioned before, five million was the highest budget that we’d been involved in.  This coming January, we are producing a feature in Fiji, right next to Australia, and this movie will be a seven to ten million dollar action thriller.  With that being said, the budgets are getting greater, and we are having better actors in the film.  Everything all around will improve, from the writers, the directors, and the locations.  We did what we had to do to get our feet planted in the ground in this industry, and now we are able to progress.

MediaBlvd> And your company does television too, right?  Or just film?

Jordan> Right now, we are kind of exploring a few different shows in the reality market.  We work with Corrupt and Snoop Dog, and Dazz of Dog Pound.  They brought us a show that is the next big hip hop produced show that we are contemplating putting together.  One time, we shot a promo for a behind the scenes show regarding wrestling.  We have shows in music and wrestling, but we are very focused on our films right now, and doing this film out here in LA in September, then the one in Fiji has kept us very busy.  But deciding to get into the reality shows, we definitely have good content.

MediaBlvd> I understand you also manage several artists and actors.  How does that play into the big picture?

Jordan> Actually that was something I did in the past.  At one time, I did manage Obie Trice.  I was a big fan of his.  Now he is concentrating more on his music.  Then I managed Ernest “The Cat” Miller, who is a professional wrestler from World Championship Wrestling.  I was able to get him into the movie, The Wrestler, and he starred opposite Mickey Rourke, as the character, the Ayatollah.  But I became very busy with producing, and we make way more money producing movies than managing.  Simultaneously, I was in a fortunate movie where I’d just acted in a film myself.  I’d just gotten back from Iowa where I shot the sequel to 2001 Maniacs, starring Bill Moseley and Lin Shaye.  So I thought, why am I going to manage other people’s careers when I can manage myself, if that’s something I’m going to do.  So there is no more Fylmar management.  We were successful, but now, outside of producing, I get to act in movies myself.

MediaBlvd> So is that something you will keep doing?  Acting yourself?

Jordan> This film was my first time acting instead of producing.  It was an amazing experience.  Diamond Dallas Page, he was the one who helped me get the role.  The actor who was playing my role originally dropped out for some reason.  And the director and Diamond Dallas Page spoke, and then offered me the role.

MediaBlvd> Do you see yourself ever going into writing or directing, in addition to everything else?

Jordan> The Fiji movie was actually a story by me, it was my concept.  So even though I’m not penning the script, I’m getting a ‘story by’ credit.  So that will probably enable me to get into the writer’s guild.  But I do like the acting thing, outside of producing.  I’m also co-starring in the Fiji production, so we’ll see what happens from there. 

MediaBlvd> At your age, most people are probably trying to figure out where they are going to go to party, or what they want to do with their lives.  I imagine you are pretty proud of your accomplishments. 

Jordan> I really felt like there was no other way though.  I came from a very respectful family and all they ever wanted me to do was to go to college and be a doctor or a lawyer.  But I wanted my own path.  I didn’t do it just to prove them wrong, but I did it for myself.  You obviously have to do it for your self to succeed.  I was living on my own money out here, and was living on credit cards for a few years.  But I knew the only way to make it was to forget about the parties, and forget about the girls, and just focus on work all day.

MediaBlvd> If you had to pick one of your accomplishments, what one thing are you the most proud of, that you’ve done?

Jordan> Actually, the movie that we are about to shoot.  I’m proud of the fact that my partner and I are the only two producers on the film, and were able to do everything.  We doubled as executive producers as well.  We financed the whole picture and have a day to day responsibility on the set with the actors.  We’re involved, literally from the script, from inception all the way to completion.  Even though the movie has not been shot yet, I’m happy that we were able to finance this picture in such a bad economy.  And literally, at the time, there were no actors attached, it was just based upon the story.  As of right now, we go into production on September 14, with David Arquette. 

MediaBlvd> Any other projects you want to mention?

Jordan> We start the $10 million dollar action feature in Fiji in January, which I’m co-starring in.  I just wrapped up my acting role as K-Jay in 2001 Maniacs, the sequel with Bill Moseley and Lin Shaye.  Then another film of mine, Mo just came out on DVD last month.  It’s a great family picture starring Eric Per Sullivan from Malcolm in the Middle.  We’ll also get into the re-shoots of the horror film called Wreckage which John Asher directed.  The writer and producer was David Frigerio, who also, ironically, is writing our movie in Fiji.  This film, Wreckage, stars Aaron Paul, who is an Emmy nominated director for Breaking Bad.  Cameron Richardson, and Mike Erwin from Underwood.  We’re going to reshoot the last 15 or 20 minutes because it came out a little too short, and that’s what’s going on!