A languid EFM was heating up at time of writing as at least three companies were believed to be locked in a bidding war for the Lena Dunham-Natalie Portman rom-com package Good Sex, with offers understood to be in excess of $45m heading into Saturday night.
According to sources Netflix, Warner Bros and Amazon are believed to be in pursuit of the project, which FilmNation and CAA Media Finance took out to the market on the eve of Berlin.
Portman will play a near-40-year-old therapist on the rebound who falls into a steamy fling with a young hipster at the same time as she embarks on a relationship with a successful older man. Dunham wrote and will direct.
Oscar-winning Portman and Sophie Mas are producing through MountainA alongside Dunham and Michael Cohen through Good Thing Going.
Dunham and Good Thing Going recently struck a creative partnership with Netflix, and her series Too Much will debut on the platform this year. Portman starred opposite Julianne Moore in May December, which Netflix snapped up at Cannes two years ago and pushed for awards.
Dunham also has a track record with Warner Bros stablemate HBO, which carried her breakout series Girls.
US packages have been relatively thin on the ground in Berlin after January’s LA wildfires disrupted business.
However the other package that has garnered a strong response is Bad Boy, the horror title that will star Ke Huy Quan and Lili Reinhart. Dave Caplan’s C2 is financing and Black Bear represents international sales, with CAA Media Finance and UTA Independent Film Group jointly handing US rights. Sources have speculated the package may sell to a studio in a worldwide deal.
In terms of Berlinale official selections, it is early days and much remains unseen, however interest was already coalescing around Michel Franco’s Competition entry Dreams. Jessica Chastain stars an American socialite faced with a dilemma when her Mexican lover enters the United States illegally. The Match Factory represents worldwide sales and the film premiered today (Saturday 15).
Also drawing interest was Huo Meng’s Chinese Competition entry and family saga Living The Land, which premiered on Friday and is represented by M-Appeal international sales, and Indian drama Shadowbox in Perspectives premieres on Sunday (February 16). Tanushree Das and Saumyananda Sahi co-directed the story of a mother who discovers her husband, a former soldier with PTSD, is a suspect in a murder investigation. The film is currently without a sales agent.
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