Overture Films has taken over distribution of Antoine Fuqua’s crime thriller Brooklyn’s Finest from Marco Weber’s moribund Senator Entertainment.

The deal was as good as done in Venice and the film’s financier Avi Lerner along with former WMi head Cassian Elwes negotiated the transfer with Overture CEO Chris McGurk, who is in Toronto with the North American premieres of The Men Who Stare At Goatsand Michael Moore’s Capitalism: A Love Story.

Overture had been one of the companies initially circling Brooklyn’s Finest when it premiered in Sundance last January, before Senator’s former president Mark Urman pounced in a deal worth around $3m plus a substantial P&A commitment. Weber cut a new version of Brooklyn’s Finestand it just screened at Venice.

Senator’s difficulty in coming up with substantial P&A funds for its slate was a critical factor in the company’s demise. Matters came to a head last spring with the ill-fated elease of The Informers, which bombed at the box office and precipitated Urman’s departure.

The former THINKFilm head returned to New York and is in Toronto scouting titles for his new venture Paladin, which has already lined up The Loss Of A Teardrop Diamond and Handsome Harry.

Meanwhile Weber told friends immediately before Toronto that he was on the brink of securing further funds but has since gone quiet.

It remains unclear what will happen to the remaining films on Senator’s books. Among these titles is the slasher film All The Boys Love Mandy Lane, which has been stuck in distribution limbo ever since its popular world premiere in Toronto two years ago. Harvey Weinstein paid $3m in a preemptive deal right after the screening and sat on the film, which eventually found its way to Senator. Now it could be about to change home yet again.

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