The Ten, Protagonist Sell at Sundance
[posted by Gregg Goldstein] In the home stretch of the Sundance festival, ThinkFilm and City Lights Home Entertainment partnered to purchase North American rights to David Wain’s Ten Commandments satire The Ten on Friday. The companies will split the $4.5 million payout plus a substantial P&A commitment. Since City Lights Pictures was one of the producers, it was unclear just how large ThinkFilm’s share of the deal was.
As of Sunday afternoon, the final day of the fest, a source involved in negotiations said IFC and Netflix were close to closing a low-to-mid-six figure deal for Jessica Yu’s extremist docu Protagonist, repped by Josh Braun of Submarine.
“The numbers are so high this year that you’ve seen a lot of co-sales,” said attorney Andrew Hurwitz, who helped rep big deals for Joshua, “How She Move” and “Son of Rambow,” which went to Paramount Vantage for $7-7.5 million plus box office bumps. Hurwitz says there’ve also been more co-repping of films, such as himself with UTA, Cinetic with WMI and new player Submarine with CAA. “In a world with fewer studio movies and TV deals, agents see this as a bigger business. Deals are becoming more complicated, and different parties bring different strengths.”
Other deals close to closing just after the fest included first-time feature director Jake Paltrow’s romantic comedy “The Good Night,” starring Penelope Cruz, Danny DeVito and Gwyneth Paltrow, with ThinkFilm, the Weinstein Co., Newmarket and Paramount Vantage said to be among the suitors.
As acquisitions execs took a well-deserved breather and left town, other deals which may close this week include “Interview,” the long-gestating “Chicago 10” (rumored to be up for a re-edit) and top Sundance prizewinners “Once” and “Padre Nuestro.”
Curious, WIP barely came up in the sales reporting. They don't need anything because they're making their own? The big studios, in the meantime, are rushing to squeak by writer-strike-trouble, which may limp past November to dovetail in June with the actors. No wonder there was a buying frenzie.
Posted by: t.holly | January 28, 2007 at 09:34 PM