Optimum Releasing has boosted its slate with nine acquisitions including romantic comedy Leap Year, Bong Joon-ho’s Cannes title Mother and Source Code, the second film from British director Duncan Jones.

The distributor acquired Leap Year, which stars Amy Adams, and The Tourist, which is based on the Jerome Salle’s film Anthony Zimmer and will star Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp, through parent company StudioCanal’s deal with Spyglass Entertainment.

Meanwhile, through StudioCanal’s ongoing relationship with Dark Castle, it has also picked up thriller Unknown White Male, which will star Liam Neeson and will go into production in the first quarter of next year, and The Losers, an adaptation of the DC Vertigo comic story about a CIA black-ops team who are betrayed and left for dead.

Optimum has also acquired the rights to Duncan Jones’s sci-fi project Source Code. The film, the first to emerged from StudioCanal’s deal with Vendome Pictures, will begin principal photography in March. It will star Jake Gyllenhaal as a man forced to relive a train bombing through a stranger’s eye to figure out who is responsible.

From CJ Entertainment, it has also bought Daniel Monzon’s Spanish action drama Cell 211, which has already been a major hit in Spain. The film stars Carlos Bardem, Luis Tosar and Marta Etrua and tells the story of a two men of different sides of a prison riot.

Having handled his previous two films, Optimum says it is particularly pleased to have “snared” the rights to Bong’s Mother, which premiered in Un Certain Regard at Cannes this year. It follows a widow trying to clear her handicapped son’s name. Optimum acquired the film from CJ Entertainment.

It will also handle the release Australian horror flick, The Loved Ones, which won the Midnight Madness Audience Award at this year’s Toronto Film Festival. It is director Sean Byrne’s debut film and is about a 17 year old student who is kidnapped by a fellow student and her father.

Finally, Optimum has also acquired Darren Bousman’s Mother’s Day, which is currently in production. Starring Rebecca De Mornay and Shawn Ashmore, it follows sadistic members of a villainous family who return to their childhood home to terrorize its new owners.

Optimum chief executive Will Clarke described the slate as the company’s “strongest and most varied” to date. “It is very pleasing to see the positive effects of working so closely with the StudioCanal European network,” he added.

The additions to its slate, which already includes Roman Polanski’s adaptation of Robert Harris’ The Ghost and 3D animation Around The World In 50 Years, come a month after Optimum signed a co-financing and co-production deal with Shaun Of The Dead production company, Big Talk.

Topics