'Nutcrackers'

Source: Nutcracker Productions LLC

‘Nutcrackers’

By Sunday morning US acquisitions activity at Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) was starting to grind through the gears.

Buyers were understood to be circling Mike Flanagan’s Stephen King adaptation The Life Of Chuck and David Gordon Green’s festive festival opener Nutcrackers, while A24 announced at the start of the day its US buy on Brady Corbet’s Venice Silver Lion winner The Brutalist.

The Life Of Chuck stars Tom Hiddleston and is a drama, despite the heavyweight horror credentials of King and Flanagan. It premiered on Friday and played again as a P&I and public screening on Saturday, with another P&I set for Wednesday. WME Independent handles US sales and FilmNation represents international rights.

Nutcrackers starring Ben Stiller gets another P&I screening on Wednesday and is handled by UTA Independent Film Group.

While the just-ended Venice Film Festival exploded out of the gate with two high-profile acquisition announcements in its first 24 hours for Maria and Queer, TIFF has stayed true to form as the first major on-site deals besides The Brutalist are yet to materialise.

After Saturday night’s Midnight Madness world premiere of Joseph Kahn’s Ick, Sunday’s watchlist brings world premieres for David Mackenzie’s thriller Relay starring Riz Ahmed, Sam Worthington and Lily James, and the Paul Rudd and Tim Robinson Midnight Madness selection Friendship from Andrew DeYoung.

There is also the first chance to see Max Minghella’s dark comedy and body horror Shell with Kate Hudson and Elisabeth Moss as a P&I screening, ahead of Thursday’s world premiere.

High-profile acquisition titles like Ron Howard’s Eden, Daniel Minahan’s 1950s drama On Swift Horses, and Anderson .Paak’s K-POPS received their world premieres on Saturday, while Gia Coppola’s The Last Showgirl first screened on Friday and has sparked speculation over whether Pamela Anderson can enter the awards conversation for her much-admired lead performance, should the film find a US distributor.

A crop of celebrity-studded acquisition titles, combined with premieres of films already spoken for, has brought a steady influx of household names to Toronto’s red carpets over the first few days after last year’s relatively sparse offering caused by the ongoing Hollywood actors strike.

Yet buyers remain cautious after a tough few years and there is very much the sense among the acquisitions community that although some deals could well get done before TIFF wraps, business is likely to play out over several weeks if not longer.

Eden, the Galapagos-set survival thriller, stars Jude Law, Sydney Sweeney, Vanessa Kirby, Ana de Armas and Daniel Brühl. Saturday’s screening was paused for 10 minutes while medics removed an audience member from Roy Thomson Hall on a stretcher – TIFF had not updated on the person’s condition at time of writing. Buyers will get the chance to see a P&I screening on Sunday.

Comedy drama K-POPS also screens on Sunday as a P&I, as do The Last Showgirl, David Siegel and Scott McGehee drama The Friend which premiered in Telluride and stars Naomi Watts and Bing the Great Dane, and 1950s-set drama On Swift Horses with Daisy Edgar-Jones and Jacob Elordi. Sean Ellis’s The Cut with Orlando Bloom premiered on Friday and there is another public screening later this week.

Rebel Wilson’s feature directorial debut The Deb screens as a P&I on Monday prior to the world premiere on September 14. Wilson has been embroiled in a legal dispute with the producers, which buyers acknowledged privately may throw up a roadblock to a quick acquisition.

R.T. Thorne’s Special Presentations survival thriller 40 Acres starring Danielle Deadwyler and sold by Visit Films screens again for press and industry on Thursday.

One acclaimed – and available – title that will not come to TIFF and yet has provoked constant chatter among buyers in Toronto is September 5, Tim Fehlbaum’s stirring recreation of ABC Sports’ coverage of the attack by Palestinian terrorists on the Israeli team at the 1972 Munich Olympics. The drama premiered on the Lido and parlayed strong word of mouth into its Telluride screening.

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