Cannes 2011 Market Buzz

Editor’s note: This list does not include any films which are in official selection, which are profiled separately by Screen.

For UK and international sellers, click here.

US SELLERS

Among the top American sellers, Summit International has revived its Pompeii project which had Roman Polanski attached and will now be directed by Paul W S Anderson, who most recently collaborated with the company on The Three Musketeers. The action takes place in 79AD Vesuvius is about to blow and a slave struggles to free his gladiator friend and win the heart of his master’s daughter. Summit Entertainment will release in the US in summer 2013.

Focus Features International arrives with Untitled Paul Weitz Project featuring a cast of Robert De Niro, Paul Dano, Olivia Thirlby, Lili Taylor, Wes Studi and Julianne Moore. Weitz adapted Nick Flynn’s 2004 memoir Another Bullshit Night In Suck City, about a writer who takes a job at a homeless shelter and finds his estranged father seeking a bed.

FilmNation has Critics Week entry Take Shelter, an apocalyptic drama that premiered in Sundance and stars Michael Shannon as a man plagued by terrifying visions. Jeff Nichols directed and Sony Pictures Classics holds North American, Latin American, Australian and New Zealand rights.

Sierra / Affinity has the sci-fi project Ender’s Game, which Gavin Hood is attached to direct and is based on Orson Scott Card’s novel about a young genius enlisted by the International Fleet to destroy an alien race. OddLot, Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman’s K/O Paper Products and Digital Domain are producing and Summit Entertainment will distribute in the US.

In the first of their eight-film deal, Icon International has James Wan’s House Of Horror hot off the North American success of Insidious. The Saw creator is expected to jet into Cannes to present his latest vision to buyers ahead of a scheduled summer start. Paradigm holds North American rights.

Lionsgate will be pushing Great Hope Springs, a Mandate production that reunites Meryl Streep with The Devil Wears Prada director David Frankel. The comedy follows Streep and her husband who sign up for marriage counseling after 30 years of wedlock. Steve Carell plays the relationship guru and production is set for August.

Exclusive Films International arrives on the Croisette with End Of Watch, a police thriller from David Ayer that will star Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Pena as members of the LAPD who take on a Mexican cartel. In pre-production.

Parlay Films has Cities starring Clive Owen and Anil Kapoor from director Roger Donaldson. Production is set for October in multiple cities including London, Mumbai and New York. The cautionary tale is set in the exuberant months leading up to the Dow Jones stock market high.

Hyde Park International has the dark comedy Bernie from Richard Linklater. The Mandalay Vision and Wind Dancer Films’ project stars Jack Black, Matthew McConaughey and Shirley MacLaine and centres on an East Texan mortician who kills the town’s grande dame and tries to make everyone think she’s still alive.

IM Global will be pushing Welcome To The Punch to the fore. The action thriller from Automatik stars James McAvoy in the story of an ex-con and his nemesis detective who uncover a conspiracy. Eran Creevy directs and Scott Free’s Ridley Scott and Liza Marshall will serve as executive producers.

Voltage Pictures arrives with Peace, Love & Misunderstanding, which is currently in post and comes from director Bruce Beresford. Sundance breakout Elizabeth Olsen stars alongside Catherine Keener, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Jane Fonda, Chace Crawford and Kyle MacLachlan in the tale of a woman who takes her children to Woodstock to stay with their hippie grandmother.

Arclight Films brings the family adventure William Tell: 3D to star Brendan Fraser as the 14th century Swiss marksman who defied a local ruler and in the process paved the way for the formation of modern Switzerland. Anna Paquin is in talks to play Tell’s wife and Til Schweiger is cast as the dignitary.

Content Film has 96 Minutes, a carjacking thriller hot off its premiere in SXSW. Brittany Snow, Evan Ross, Christian Serratos, Jonathan Michael Trautmann and David Oyelowo star.

Magnolia International arrives with Jack And Diane starring Juno Temple and Riley Keough - a story of two teenage girls who fall for each other, awakening werewolf-like visions in one of them. Bradley Rust Gray’s two previous films The Exploding Girl and Salt both screened in Berlin.

Lakeshore International has Mavericks starring Gerard Butler, a true story about a famed surfing trainer, from Walden Media that Fox will distribute in the US with production set to begin in October in northern California.

Cinema Management Group has boarded Deadheads, a tongue-in-cheek story about zombie slackers who take a road trip to find a lost love, all the while pursued by bounty hunters. Michael McKiddy and Ross Kidder star.

Bleiberg Entertainment will be talking up There Be Dragons, an adventure from Roland Joffe that opened in the US last month through Samuel Goldwyn Films and encompasses the Spanish Civil War and the origins of Opus Dei. Dougray Scott, Rodrigo Santoro and Olga Kurylenko star.

Myriad Pictures will be screening a promo for Edwin Boyd, a crime drama starring Scott Speedman as the real-life Canadian bank robber from the ’50s who became a media darling when he started robbing banks and getting away with it. Brian Cox and Kelly Reilly also star and Nathan Morlando directs.

Maya Entertainment has Spree from Ella Enchanted director Tommy O’Haver. Production is scheduled to begin in early autumn on the tale of a man on the cusp of marriage whose philandering trawl through Hollywood spirals out of control.

Lightning Entertainment has horror comedy The Revenant, starring David Anders as a fallen soldier who discovers he has joined the ranks of the living dead and with the help of a friend preys on LA’s drug dealers and killers for blood. Kerry Prior directed the film, which screens in the market.

Shoreline holds international rights to comedy East Fifth Bliss starring Michael C Hall, Lucy Liu, Brie Larson and Peter Fonda. The story follows a static New Yorker in his 30s who shares an apartment with his father and develops an awkward relationship with a sexually precocious 18-year-old.

Stonebrook International has the Spanish genre film PX-3D (Paranormal Xperience 3D) from Rodar Y Rodar and Chromosome22 and will be showing a promo. Sergio Vizcaino is currently directing the story about a skeptical medical student who is dispatched by her professor to investigate a cursed village.

XYZ Films has Greetings To The Devil starring Edgar Ramirez, who delivered an acclaimed performance in Carlos. Ramirez plays a former guerilla seeking a fresh start who must kill his old comrades or his kidnapped daughter dies.

Andy Garcia will star with Ed Harris and William Fichtner in the submarine supernatural thriller Phantom. Director Todd Robinson is preparing for an August shoot and North American rights holder Paradigm is closing in on an international sales agency.

ICM represents worldwide rights to Gotti: Three Generations starring John Travolta, Lindsay Lohan and Joe Pesci. The crime saga is based on the life of crime lord John Gotti Sr and his relationship with his son. Barry Levinson is on board to direct and shooting is set for October in New York.

Red Granite Pictures is selling the ensemble comedy Friends With Kids from Red Granite and Jon Hamm and Jennifer Westfeldt’s Point West Pictures. Currently in post, the project stars Megan Fox, Jon Hamm, Kristen Wiig, Ed Burns and Chris O’Dowd and centres on two single friends who decide to have a child together and date other people. Westfeldt is directing and Cinetic Media holds US sales rights.

Archstone Distribution brings the feelgood family feature Will starring Damien Lewis and Bob Hoskins. The story follows a youngster who travels to Istanbul to honour his father’s memory and watch Liverpool FC play in the 2005 Champions League final. Liverpool players Steven Gerrard and Jamie Carragher also feature.

Visit Films has Bellflower, which premiered at Sundance and Oscilloscope Films will release in the US in August. Evan Glodell’s drama is about friends who build flame throwers and WMDs in the hope of causing an apocalypse that can pave the way for their gang.

Jim Harvey has resurfaced as president of Studio City Pictures and will be touting Fortune, a Vegas drama with a secret sassy cast that tracks the overlapping lives of feuding sisters, a small-time hustler and a woman on the run from the FBI.

New company Dixie Theatrical Corporation will arrive on the Croisette with Julia X 3D, which centres on a woman who gets abducted by an internet date but eventually subdues him. Turns out the woman and her sister are internet predators themselves.

Unified Pictures has A Single Shot from Unified, Unanimous Entertainment and Bron Studios. The film is shooting in Vancouver and stars Terrence Howard, William H Macy, Juliette Lewis, Emily Mortimer, Juno Temple and Alessandro Nivola. David M Rosenthal is directing the story of a game of cat-and-mouse between a hunter and hardened backwater criminals.