EFM 2025: The buzz titles from the Americas

WME Independent is launching international sales on raucous comedy The Shitheads starring Dave Franco, a hot property after Neon’s marquee Sundance acquisition of Together. O’Shea Jackson Jr and Peter Dinklage will also star in Macon Blair’s tale of two hapless men who undergo an adventure when they are tasked with transporting a stubborn teen to rehab. WME Independent and CAA Media Finance jointly represent US rights.

A24 is kicking off sales on Midsommar director Ari Aster’s Eddington, about a small-town New Mexico sheriff with lofty ambitions. Joaquin Phoenix, Pedro Pascal, Emma Stone and Austin Butler star, and the project is in post. The slate includes Sundance hit If I Had Legs I’d Kick You starring Rose Byrne; and David Lowery’s pop-world saga Mother Mary.

Just as it did last year with Steven Soderbergh’s Presence, Neon International arrives in Berlin with a hot Sundance genre title, this time in the form of Michael Shanks’ body horror Together. Real-life item Dave Franco and Alison Brie play a troubled couple who retreat to the country in the hopes of rekindling their connection, and get more than they bargained for. Neon paid $17m for worldwide rights to the film excluding Australia and New Zealand, and will release theatrically in North America on August 1.

Magnify lands in Berlin with a tasty roster led by global sales (excl­uding Austria, former Yugoslavia, Germany and Luxembourg) on Ulrike Ottinger’s dark comedy The Blood Countess, starring Isabelle Huppert as the 16th-century serial killer Countess Elizabeth Bathory. The company is also selling Generation Kplus drama The Botanist, as well as Sundance selections Obex and Endless Cookie.

AGC International has international rights to Bill Condon’s Sundance premiere and remake of the musical drama Kiss Of The Spider Woman, starring Diego Luna, Tonatiuh and Jennifer Lopez. WME and CAA Media Finance jointly represent US rights.

XYZ Films holds worldwide rights excluding Canada and the UK on Berlinale Special selection Honey Bunch. Grace Glowicki stars as a woman with acute memory loss, whose marriage is put to the test when she and her husband (Ben Petrie) attend a remote facility where she undergoes experimental treatment. Madeleine Sims-Fewer and Dusty Mancinelli co-directed.

Highland Film Group’s slate includes Jess Varley’s SXSW selection The Astronaut starring Kate Mara as an astronaut who believes an extraterrestrial presence has followed her back to Earth. Laurence Fishburne and Gabriel Luna also star. CAA Media Finance and UTA Independent Film Group jointly represent US rights. Martin Campbell is lining up for a spring shoot on action thriller Dedication starring Daisy Ridley as a Marine Corps officer relieved of duty who is caught up in an attack on a school building. CAA Media Finance handles US rights.

Voltage Pictures commences talks on Jamie Marshall’s action thriller Safe House starring Lucien Laviscount from Emily In Paris and Hannah John-Kamen from upcoming Marvel Studios tentpole Thunderbolts*.

Red Sea Media brings Latigo Films’ action thriller Neglected with Josh Duhamel, Dylan Sprouse and Til Schweiger, about a young man who walks into a police station and threatens to kill a detective’s kidnapped son unless he solves a series of gruesome murders. David Lipper directs and production wrapped in Mississippi late last year.

Raven Banner will be tempting buyers with Marko Mäkilaakso’s completed Finnish horror comedy The Creeps in which two US teens attend a ski party beset by a swarm of malign creatures. The cast includes Chris Cavalier, Veronica Jarvis and Christopher Lambert.

Myriad Pictures will be talking up David Gleeson’s recently wrapped drama One Night Only, about a cinema owner’s eventful night, starring Colin Morgan, Calam Lynch and Niamh Cusack; Mike Ott’s upcoming Glasgow Film Festival selection McVeigh: The Terror Inside starring Alfie Allen as Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh; and Lee Seunghoon’s completed redemption tale Run To You with Dahyun from the K-pop band Twice.

Visit Films kicks off talks on Luz, Flora Lau’s recent Sundance world premiere starring Isabelle Huppert, Sandrine Pinna and Guo Xiao Dong about an ex-con searching for his estranged daughter in China, who crosses paths in a VR world with a gallerist seeking connection with her stepmother in France.

Upgrade has boarded global sales, excluding Australia and New Zealand, on Sanctuary Pictures’ upcoming Australian horror thriller Penny Lane Is Dead. Mia’Kate Russell will direct the 1986-set story of three best friends having a beach-house celebration that turns into a fight for survival.

Jackrabbit Media arrives with Christmas In Mistletoe, Collins Abbott White’s romantic comedy about a disillusioned Christmas film location scout who rediscovers her holiday spirit in a cosy mountain town as she falls in love with the perfect leading man. Kabby Borders, Tom Gipson, Kara Vasseur and Stephanie Hong star.

Yellow Veil has worldwide rights to the Sundance Midnight selection Dead Lover, Grace Glowicki’s sci-fi horror comedy about a lonely gravedigger who finally meets her dream man. When he drowns at sea, she goes to morbid lengths to resurrect him. Glowicki and Ben Petrie co-wrote the screenplay and produced with Yona Strauss.

Premiere Entertainment Group will be talking up neo-noir thriller Lake George starring Shea Whigham and Carrie Coon. Jeffrey Reiner’s film centres on a hitman and his target who attempt to steal from mobsters, and was distributed late last year in the US by Magnet Releasing. Tom DeNucci’s completed thriller The Last Tenant centres on a newly engaged woman whose wedding plans crumble after a manipulative tenant in her old apartment invades her life. Ciara Hanna and Jamie Bernadette star.

Sublimity Entertainment has boarded worldwide rights to sci-fi horror Silk Theory, with Timothy Hutton and Laura Marano attached to star. It is the story of a couple who face unexplained mutations that threaten their farm community. Production on the Kiskeya Pictures title is scheduled for later this year in Atlanta, Georgia with Benjamin Louis directing from a screenplay by Jonah Kuehner.

FilmSharks kicks off talks on Rotterdam’s Mexican selection Don’t Leave The Kids Alone from Emilio Portes, in which a mother leaves her two children in their new home where sibling dynamics escalate with dramatic consequences; and Argentinian comedy drama Mazel Tov directed by comedy star Adrian Suar, who plays a man living in the US who travels to his sister’s wedding in a bid to rebuild family ties, only to learn his father has died. The film is in post.

Bleiberg/Dimbort arrives with action thriller Escobank: The Hunt For Pablo Escobar’s Lost Fortune from Orit Liba, in which a motley crew of Miami misfits, veterans and ex-cons set out to find hidden cash buried in the Colombian jungle by notorious drug lord Pablo Escobar; the film is in post. TC Christensen’s Escape From Germany follows the true plight of US missionaries trapped in Germany on the eve of the Second World War. It has grossed more than $2.6m at the North American box office through Samuel Goldwyn Films.

Cloud9 Studios has picked up sales on Barry Levinson’s thriller Assassination, previously at Arclight Films, after co-writer and producer Nicholas Celozzi sued financier and production outfit 308 US, citing breaches of contract; 308 US has denied the allegations and a judge will decide what happens next in April. Production is reportedly scheduled to begin that month on the new take on the JFK conspiracy starring Al Pacino, Jessica Chastain, Brendan Fraser and Bryan Cranston.

Terrifier franchise sales agent The Coven will continue to push zombie film Epilogue starring Kate Siegel from Midnight Mass and David Dastmalchian from Late Night With The Devil. Genre ace Mike Flanagan (2024 TIFF audience award winner The Life Of Chuck) serves as executive producer and Michael Fimognari directs. Sales will commence on horror comedy Haunted Heist starring Lil Rel Howery from Get Out and Tiffany Haddish from Girls Trip, with production scheduled for Q2.

Pinnacle Peak Pictures arrives with A Line Of Fire, a completed thriller that marks Panoramic Pictures’ first production. The story centres on a former FBI agent and widower caring for his children who is pulled back into action. Matt Shapira’s film is screening in the market and stars David AR White, Cuba Gooding Jr, Jason Patric, Scott Baio and Samantha Lockwood.

Epic Pictures arrives with Colin McIvor’s thriller No Ordinary Heist starring Eddie Marsan and Eanna Hardwicke, which shoots in Ireland in the first quarter of 2025 and follows two bank employees who must steal millions to save their families’ lives. Jeremy Rudd’s Die’ced: Reloaded sees a teenager come face to face with a deranged killer on Halloween and stars Eden Campbell, Jason Brooks, Nigel Vonas, Collin Fischer and Esha More, while horror thriller Dorothea from Chad Ferrin is based on the true story of the Granny Killer. All are market premieres.

Blue Fox Entertainment screens sci-fi adventure Xeno, which stars Lulu Wilson in the story of a teenage girl and a terrifying alien who form a powerful bond after a chance encounter in the desert; Kevin Hart produced, Matthew Loren Oates directed and Blue Fox represents worldwide rights excluding Canada.

The Utopia slate includes Pedro Kos’s thriller In Our Blood, a Fantasia selection and upcoming FrightFest UK premiere, and Sundance cam-girl drama Bunnylovr.

VMI Worldwide is talking up the music documentary I Was A Teenage Sex Pistol co-directed by Andre Relis and Nick Mead. The film charts the rise of notorious British punk band the Sex Pistols and is based on the book by founding member Glen Matlock. The sales slate also includes slasher film Popeye The Slayer Man, Robert Michael Ryan’s dark reimagining of the children’s character. Vantage Media is releasing in the US this year.

MPI Media Group arrives with Smiler Films’ completed horror The Killgrin, in which a woman learns from a spiritual healer that her aura is inflected by a ‘killgrin’.

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