EXCLUSIVE: Veteran entertainment executives Michelle Mendelovitz and Cory Bennett Lewis have launched Warrior Productions, a film and television production company focused on developing movies and TV series based on original ideas and existing IP with established and emerging creators.
The first three project that have been put into development include horror feature DeMonica, sci-fi drama The Continuers and the Marguerite Alibert series Bordello Princess.
Mendelovitz and Lewis teamed up for Warrior Productions having previously worked together briefly at Mattel Television Studios. Lewis joined the company in April 2024 as Head of Production while Mendelovitz was running it before she left in August of that year.
Previously Mendelovitz served as SVP and Head of Drama Development at 20th Television and as Senior Creative Executive for Scripted & Unscripted Programming at Apple TV as part of the streamer’s founding executive team. Her résumé also includes a stint as VP Scripted Programming at Sony Pictures Television. Series she has worked on over the years include Severance, For All Mankind, Dopesick, Percy Jackson and the Olympians, and The Good Doctor.
Mendelovitz serves as an executive producer on the live-action scripted series Magic 8 Ball, from M. Night Shyamalan and Brad Falchuk, which is in the works at Mattel. As Head of Mattel Television Studios, Mendelovitz brought Shyamalan on board after working with him on Servant while she was at Apple TV.
Prior to Mattel, Lewis was Head of Production at J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot. Throughout her career, she worked on the Star Wars, Star Trek, Mission Impossible, Alice in Wonderland, Jack Ryan and Cloverfield franchises and managed and produced such projects as HBO’s Lovecraft Country, Apple TV’s Lisey’s Story and Little Voice, Hulu’s Castle Rock and the Netflix film Lou.
“Warrior was founded with one purpose: to champion stories that matter,” said Mendelovitz, Co-Founder and CEO. “We’ve had the privilege of helping shape some of the industry’s most successful films and series and we believe the world’s most powerful entertainment begins with fearless creative voices, unforgettable characters, and stories that connect people across every border.”
Added Co-Founder and CEO Lewis, “The entertainment landscape is constantly evolving, but audiences continue to seek emotionally authentic stories told at the highest creative level. Warrior is built to be a home for creators with bold perspectives and the ambition to create enduring global entertainment.”
Here are details about the projects on Warrior Productions’ development slate:
DeMonica: A supernatural horror feature screenplay by writer-director Miguel Angel Ferrer. DeMonica plunges into the volatile Mexican border, where the past never stays buried. A former sicaria returns to the violent streets of Matamoros to save her sister from a brothel run by a ruthless narco and from the malevolent force now living inside her forcing her to enlist the last person she should trust: an exiled Jesuit exorcist with his own darkness to outrun. Ferrers’ most recent feature The Shadow of the Sun was Venezuela’s official submission to the Academy Awards in 2026, and his latest short, My Father’s Son, played at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival.
The Continuers: Adapted from the novel by former Israeli investigative journalist Yair Eisenberg, optioned for television ahead of its English-language publication. It is world-building sci-fi on a civilizational scale: two centuries after twelve extraordinary volunteers are frozen beneath Masada as humanity’s last insurance policy, they wake to a ravaged Earth and a fanatical cult that engineered its collapse, and must decide what’s worth saving while the mystery of why these twelve were chosen unravels.
Bordello Princess: Chronicles the rise of Marguerite Alibert, a woman born with nothing and who seduced her way into the world’s most powerful circles, outwitted kings, survived scandal, and stood accused of murdering her Egyptian prince husband. As the world watched the trial of the century unfold, the question was never simply whether she pulled the trigger — it was why the British Crown seemed determined to let her walk free. The answer lays in a secret so explosive it threatened the future of the monarchy itself.
