Buyers from across the globe are back on the Croisette, shopping lists at the ready. Screen picks through some of the hottest titles from the North America, at various stages of production, that are available in the market.
WME Independent launches sales on Nuremberg, James Vanderbilt’s ensemble historical thriller and potential awards play led by Rami Malek as the psychiatrist Douglas Kelley and Russell Crowe as Nazi party leader Hermann Göring, who lock horns in the run-up to the Nuremberg Trial. Filming is underway in Dublin on Power Ballad, John Carney’s musical about a wedding singer and a rock star, led by Paul Rudd and Nick Jonas. 30West and UTA Independent Film Group jointly represent US rights with WME Independent.
FilmNation arrives with I Play Rocky, Peter Farrelly’s drama about the making of 1977 Oscar winner Rocky, based on a script by Peter Gamble. Baha Productions, Fireside Films and Eden Rock Media produce, and CAA Media Finance handles US sales. The slate includes Way Of The Warrior Kid, a Chris Pratt vehicle that McG will direct about a convalescing Navy SEAL who toughens up his bullied nephew. UTA Independent Film Group jointly represents sales.
Voltage Pictures brings two titles in production. Kate Beckinsale and Scott Eastwood star in the thriller Stolen Girl, about a woman who teams up with a former Marine when her ex-husband kidnaps their daughter and flees to the Middle East; James Kent directs. Faster follows a talented karting competitor, trying to break into the world of Formula 1, who falls for her rival; Morgan S Dalibert directs Paola Locatelli, Alban Lenoir, Tchéky Karyo and Rik Kleve. Universal will release theatrically in France in February 2025.
XYZ Films will be talking up Flesh Of The Gods from Mandy director Panos Cosmatos. Kristen Stewart and Oscar Isaac play a hedonistic couple in 1980s Los Angeles who encounter an enigmatic woman and her hard-partying group. Adam McKay is among the producers. Action thriller He Bled Neon stars Joe Cole as a man who confronts his dark past at his brother’s funeral in Las Vegas. XYZ produces with Two & Two Pictures, and jointly represents US rights with WME Independent. Rita Ora and Jack O’Connell also star.
Lionsgate International sells the previously announced Stephen King adaptation The Long Walk, the story of a deadly endurance contest for teenage boys that was published in 1979 under the pseudonym Richard Bachman. Lionsgate’s The Hunger Games collaborator Francis Lawrence will direct.
Magnify handles worldwide sales on Tyler Taormina’s comedy drama and Directors’ Fortnight selection Christmas Eve In Miller’s Point starring Michael Cera. Also for sale is Nelicia Low’s debut dramatic thriller Pierce, about a young fencer who believes his recently imprisoned older brother may be a violent sociopath.
Fortitude International launches talks on the Pierce Brosnan romantic thriller In The Wind from Passage Pictures. The former 007 star will play a reclusive retired spy drawn out by a neighbour, digging up secrets from both their pasts. Simon Barry, creator of Netflix hit show Warrior Nun, makes his feature directorial debut and produces with Passage through his Reality Distortion Field.
A Higher Standard starts talks on the Samuel L Jackson and Henry Golding thriller Head Games, in which a corporate spy infiltrates the villa of the founder of a neuroprosthetics firm. Anthony Mandler will direct. The fledgling slate includes action thriller Bear Country, starring Russell Crowe as a club owner who gets robbed, reuniting the actor with his Unhinged director Derrick Borte. An Australia shoot is scheduled for October.
Palisades Park Pictures launches sales on Enid Blyton’s beloved children’s tale The Magic Faraway Tree. Andrew Garfield and Claire Foy will star as the parents in the family adventure. Neal Street and Elysian Film Group are in pre-production and Ben Gregor will direct from a screenplay by Simon Farnaby (Wonka, Paddington 2). CAA Media Finance jointly represents US rights.
Arclight Films will be fielding interest on Paul Schrader’s Competition selection Oh, Canada, which stars his 1980 American Gigolo lead Richard Gere as a documentarian who confesses in an interview that he fled to Canada decades earlier to dodge the Vietnam War draft. Uma Thurman, Michael Imperioli and Jacob Elordi also star. WME Independent co-represents US sales with producer David Gonzales. Arclight’s slate includes Toni Collette, Andy Garcia and Alex Pettyfer in romantic comedy Under The Stars, which director Michelle Danner is shooting in Italy. Capstone Global handles US rights.
Visit Films has Directors’ Fortnight selection Good One, India Donaldson’s feature debut about a 17-year-old who goes on a backpacking weekend in the Catskill mountains and must contend with the duelling egos of her father and his friend. New Story has acquired French rights to the film, which premiered at Sundance and stars Lily Collias, James Le Gros and Danny McCarthy.
Cinema Management Group will screen Kensuke’s Kingdom with a voice cast featuring Cillian Murphy, Sally Hawkins, Raffey Cassidy, Aaron MacGregor and Ken Watanabe. Frank Cottrell-Boyce adapted the novel by Michael Morpurgo about a young boy shipwrecked on an island. Sales have closed for North America (Blue Fox Entertainment), the UK and Ireland (Modern Films) and Italy (Movies Inspired), among others.
Toronto genre specialist Raven Banner arrives with FX-driven monster horror comedy Frankie Freako, about a workaholic yuppie whose life is upended when he unleashes a trio of tiny trouble-makers in his home. Conor Sweeney stars and Steven Kostanski directed. Action comedy Sunset Superman from Jason Krawczyk stars Michael Jai White as JT, who must fix his grandmother’s sink while keeping her oblivious about a home invasion. Jackie Richardson and Billy Zane also star.
MPX has boarded worldwide sales on Geoffrey Cowper’s romantic comedy Books & Drinks from the producer of Berlinale 2024 Competition entry Pepe. Jackson Rathbone from The Twilight Saga plays the owner of a struggling bookstore in New York who inherits a home in the Dominican Republic.
Highland Film Group arrives with London Calling, an action comedy starring Josh Duhamel as a hitman in a fix who needs to get back to the UK to reunite with his son. Allan Ungar directs and production took place in South Africa. The slate includes the supernatural romance Fate with Andrew McCarthy, Faye Dunaway and Harvey Keitel. Jonathan Baker will shoot in Vancouver later this month.
Blue Fox starts talks on financial thriller The Panic, starring Donald Sutherland, Cary Elwes, Malcolm McDowell, Justin Chatwin and Cristiana Dell’Anna. Daniel Adams directs the 1907-set drama about real-life bankers JP Morgan and Charles T Barney as they grapple with a financial crisis. Production is scheduled to begin in New York in June. Thriller Black Diamond from Hemlock Circle Productions is in production and tells of a hedge-fund manager’s girlfriend who is caught up in a deadly game of obsession after meeting a local handyman.
The Coven is introducing Angela Gulner’s completed supernatural horror The Beldham starring Patricia Heaton and Katie Parker about a young mother and her mother who move into a sinister farmhouse. Sales continue on Terrifier 3, and the remake of 1987 cult horror Street Trash will screen in the market.
Epic Pictures launches worldwide talks on Colin Krawchuk’s upcoming Halloween night horror The Jester 2 and James Morris’s completed horror He Never Left, in which a fugitive takes refuge in a motel that houses a killer. Colin Cunningham, Jessica Staples and Morris star.
Utopia begins talks on Tribeca 2023 drama The Line, about the dark side of university fraternities. Alex Wolff, Halle Bailey and the late Angus Cloud star, and Utopia will release in North America later this year.
Yellow Veil Pictures handles international sales and North American distribution on Carl Fry and Maxwell Nalevansky’s stoner comedy Rats!, about a young man who is busted by the police and is embroiled in the world of drug kingpins, ecoterrorists and mall rats. Danielle Evon Ploeger, Luke Wilcox, Darius R Autry and Khali Sykes star in the completed film.
Jackrabbit Media will be talking up Aimee Kuge’s completed horror film Cannibal Mukbang, about a shy nerd who falls for a woman obsessed with the mukbang extreme-eating subculture. April Consalo and Nate Wise star, and Jackrabbit will distribute in the US. Sulayman Tahir’s horror sci-fi Peripheraltells of strange occurrences when a missing married man returns home. Andria B Langston and Patrick Walker star.
VMI Worldwide begins talks on Kill Craft, STL Productions, Savage Sinema and Millman Productions’ genre tale about a young woman who takes over the family business when her hitman father dies. Mark Savage directs Sanae Loutsis, and VMI Releasing will distribute in the US. Monsters Of California, directed by Tom DeLonge of rock band Blink‑182, follows high-schoolers who encounter a Yeti and aliens on uncovering government secrets. Casper Van Dien, Richard Kind, Jack Samson and Arianne Zucker star.
Glenn Kendrick Ackermann’s V International Media sells the romantic supernatural drama Can You Hear Me starring Peter Facinelli from the Twilight films and Charlotte Radford. Simon Hunter directed the completed story from Radford’s script about a US soldier wounded in the First World War who is mysteriously reunited with his English love on their country estate beset by strange events.
Bleiberg Entertainment is selling Degenerate from Benacus Entertainment and RNF Productions, an ensemble crime thriller led by Emile Hirsch as a poker player who must win back his kidnapped girlfriend in the biggest game of his life. Luc Walpoth directed the film and Bleiberg will announce details in Cannes of a planned Q3 theatrical US release.
FilmSharks arrives with Buffalo Film’s completed crime thriller A Silent Death from Sebastian Schindel, set in 1980s Patagonia, where a hunting guide stumbles on a shocking crime involving his niece. Donkey Kong Pictures’ animation Monkey King: A Hero’s Journey To The West from director Phil Nibbelink follows a brave monkey surviving in the forest.
Entertainment Squad will be talking up Lav Bodnaruk and Michael Mier’s in-production Zombie Plane starring veteran martial artist Chuck Norris as the commander of secret celebrity agent Vanilla Ice, who must work with a passenger (Sophie Monk) to contain a virus outbreak on a passenger plane. TJ Noel-Sullivan’s Midas follows a college dropout and friends who rob the health insurer that denied coverage for his mother.
Film Mode arrives with Ernesto Diaz Espinoza’s action title Diablo, which is in post and stars Scott Adkins as a released prisoner who seeks to fulfil a promise and kidnaps a gangster’s daughter. Marko Zaror also stars.
MPI Media Group arrives with Sun and Moon Films’ completed horror The Severed Sun. A woman murders her abusive husband, awakening a supernatural beast, as a brutal witch hunt threatens to tear apart an isolated religious community. Emma Appleton from The Witcher leads a cast that includes Toby Stephens, Jodhi May and Lewis Gribben. Dean Puckett directs.
Myriad Pictures has boarded sales on survival thriller Walking Supply from Ireland-based Brick Lane Entertainment, Kemodo Entertainment and Mountain Man Media. Derek Barnes directs James McDougall, Douglas Nyback, Joel Labelle and Ian Matthews in the story of three men who escape a Russian labour camp. Saban Films will distribute in the US later this year.
Premiere Entertainment Group will be talking up Jack Martin’s sci-fi adventure Storm Chasers, about an engineer (Page Tudyk Gomez) sent to Alaska to investigate a scientist’s claims to have discovered a new source of renewable energy. Romantic comedy Christmas Overtime stars Meghan Carrasquillo as an unemployed actress offered a commercial by an ad executive who wants his staff to work on Christmas Eve. Ann Deborah Fishman directed.
Pinnacle Peak Pictures screens the dystopian drama Disciples In The Moonlight from House of Grace Films and CineMammoth Productions. Brett Varvel directed the story set in a future where the Bible has been outlawed. Todd Terry from Breaking Bad stars alongside Varvel. The producers are overseeing US distribution on July 24 on 1,100 screens.
The Exchange arrives with Jennifer Garner drama Fruitcake, inspired by the true story of a churchgoing accountant who stole $17m in a fruitcake heist. Max Winkler will direct and CAA Media Finance jointly handles US sales.
Concourse Media brings political thriller Words Of War, starring Maxine Peake, Jason Isaacs and Ciaran Hinds, about the US-Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya who was murdered in 2006. Concourse is partnering with Rolling Pictures and Good Films Collective. The slate includes revenge thriller Long Shadows starring Dermot Mulroney and Dominic Monaghan.
Shoreline Entertainment has acquired worldwide rights excluding Australia and New Zealand to Brick Studios’ comedy Christmess. Heath Davis directed the story of a once famous actor reduced to playing Santa Claus in a mall, who tries to earn his daughter’s forgiveness.
The Film Sales Company will kick off talks on 10 Kilos, Doron Eran’s drama about a woman — imprisoned in Bolivia after an exotic weekend of partying — who rises to the top of the country’s drug cartel. Also on the docket is Bad Faith, a documentary from Stephen Ujlaki and Christopher Jacob Jones exploring the origins of the Christian nationalism movement.
Lon Haber & Co will talk up dramatic thriller The Ghost Trap, James Khanlarian’s story about a lobsterman whose fiancée is swept off the boat by a rogue wave, and who is beset by mysterious rivals. Zak Steiner, Greer Grammer, Sarah Catherine Hook and Steven Ogg star.
Catalyst Studios is kicking off talks on the gritty Undercard from Tamika Miller. Wanda Sykes plays a female boxing trainer who reunites with the son she abandoned, coaching him in the biggest fight of his career.
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