In the latest high-profile acquisition at Sundance Neon is understood to have acquired worldwide rights to Steven Soderbergh’s ghost story Presence starring Lucy Liu.
The Premieres selection debuted last Friday and plays again this upcoming weekend. David Koepp (Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny, Jurassic Park) wrote the screenplay.
Shot in one location, Presence follows a family that moves into a suburban home inhabited by a ghost. The cast includes Chris Sullivan, Callina Liang, Julia Fox, Eddy Maday, and West Mulholland.
Julie M. Anderson and Ken Meyer served as producers and Koepp and Corey Bayes are executive producers. Michael Sugar of Sugar23 brokered the deal with attorney Jamie Feldman and Meyer.
Presence marks Soderbergh’s first film as director at Sundance since his 1989 breakout Sex, Lies And Videotape.
The Sundance market is beginning to heat up after a sluggish start, with more deals expected to close in the coming days and weeks.
On Monday Netflix announced its $17m acquisition of Greg Jardin’s Midnight horror selection It’s What’s Inside, one day after Searchlight Pictures closed a $10m worldwide buy on Jesse Eisenberg’s A Real Pain.
A deal on Jeff Zimbalist’s Skywalkers: A Love Story is brewing after buyers have been bidding on the documentary following its world premiere last Thursday.
At time of writing distributors were deep in talks over, among others, Josh Margolin’s June Squibb comedy drama Thelma, documentary Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story from Ian Bonhôte and Peter Ettedgui, and Megan Park’s coming of age tale My Old Ass – all screening in Premieres.
Interest was also growing on Rob Peace, Chiwetel Ejiofor’s true life drama about a Yale student from an impoverished background whose father is serving a prison sentence for a crime he says he did not commit. Paramount’s Republic Pictures financed the production.
Another title on buyers’ radars is the road trip documentary Will & Harper featuring Will Ferrell. Josh Greenbaum directed and helmed last year’s comedy release Strays featuring Ferrell, as well as Kristen Wiig comedy Barb And Star Go To Vista Del Mar.
Earlier in the festival Sony Pictures Classics pounced on multiple territories on Rich Peppiatt’s Kneecap, and Netflix picked up Benjamin Ree’s Ibelin.
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