Spencer Susser’s Hesher and Joel Schumacher’s Twelve were two of three Sundance domestic deals to play out on Thursday as the final weekend approached.
Shoreline sold Javier Fuentes-Leon’s World Cinema Narrative Competition entry Undertow (Contracorriente) to Wolfe Video for low six figures late on Thursday afternoon
Newmarket is understood to have paid low seven figures for US rights to Hesher starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Devin Brochu, Natalie Portman and Rainn Wilson.
Meanwhile Hannover House is believed to have paid around $2m for North American rights to Joel Schumacher’s Twelve in a deal with CAA and Gaumont following its world premiere in the Premieres section last Friday.
As the festival approached the final weekend imminent announcements were expected on Amir Bar-Lev’s documentary I’m Pat Tillman, which Harvey Weinstein has been pursuing, as well as Derek Cianfrance’s Blue Valentine and Michael Winterbottom’s The Killer Inside Me.
Newmarket came in aggressively for Hesher at the eleventh hour after several buyers had been talking to CAA and WME Global, among them Lionsgate. Negotiations finally closed around 4am on Thursday..
The company will put up a high seven-figure p&a commitment and will kick off in select cities later this year, expanding into at least half of the top 75 markets within three weeks of release. Brochu plays a teenager grieving over the death of his mother who befriends a wild loner (Gordon-Levitt) with a penchant for burning things.
Johnny Lin produced along with Lucy Cooper, Matthew Weaver, Scott Prisand, Win Sherdian, Portman and Susser. Hesher gets its final Sundance screenings today [28] and Saturday.
For the Twelve deal, Hannover House company has brought in Tom Ortenberg’s One Way Out Media to oversee domestic distribution sometime in 2010.
Jordan Melamed adapted Nick McDonell’s novel about violence and drug use among privileged urban adolescents on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Chace Crawford, Emma Roberts and Rory Culkin star.
Gaumont chairman Sidonie Dumas and CEO Christophe Riandee , Radar Pictures CEO Ted Field, and Original Media CEO Charlie Corwin produced with Bob Salerno and Melamed. Radar’s Mike Weber served as executive producer.
CAA packaged and arranged financing for the film and co-represented domestic rights with foreign rights holder Gaumont. Hannover House CEO Eric Parkinson, who back in 2002 expanded the publishing stable to encompass film and video product, negotiated alongside president Fred Shefte.
Target Development Group acquired Hannover House earlier this month in a stock-for-stock swap agreement. Hannover House plans eight theatrical releases and 28 home video releases this year.
Wolfe president Maria Lynn and CEO Kathy Wolfe did the Undertow deal with Sam Eigen of Shoreline, Steven Beer of Greenberg Traurig, and producers Fuentes-Leon, Rodrigo Guerrero Rojas, Andres Calderon and Cristian Conti from Dynamo.
Manolo Cardona, Cristian Mercado and Tatiana Astengo star in the tale of a married Peruvian fisherman who struggles to reconcile his homosexuality with the town’s rigid traditions.
Focus Features confirmed on Thursday that it had acquired domestic and select territories to Lisa Cholodenko’s Sundance selection The Kids Are All Right.
The company did the deal - believed to be in the $4.5m range - with Cinetic for North American rights, and acquired rights in the UK, Germany and South Africa from the film’s international sales agent Inferno, which has also closed deals with Hopscotch in Australia and New Zealand, Swen in Latin America, and Seven Films in Greece.
Meanwhile a slew of other titles - many of them documentaries - continued to attract interest, among them Catfish, Cane Toads: The Conquest, Lovers Of Hate, Joan Rivers – A Piece Of Work, and Countdown To Zero, while several international sales agents were courting Gasland and Climate Refugees.
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