Sony Pictures Classics acquires David Cronenberg's A Dangerous Method!

Here's the press release:

Sony Pictures Classics announced today that they have acquired the US Rights to David Cronenberg’s A DANGEROUS METHOD from UK based Hanway Films. The film, produced by Jeremy Thomas (THE LAST EMPEROR, SEXY BEAST), stars Viggo Mortenson, Keira Knightley, Michael Fassbender, and Vincent Cassel. The film is currently in post-production.

The Weinstein Company picks up Madonna's Directorial effort W.E. for release...

...and could position it as an Awards contender. Here's the announcement:

The Weinstein Company acquires Madonna’s W.E. for U.S. Release

Abbie Cornish, James D’Arcy, Andrea Riseborough Star In Romantic Drama

Madonna’s Feature Film Directorial Debut

2011 Release Planned

New York, NY, June 13, 2011 – The Weinstein Company (TWC) announced today that it has acquired U.S. distribution rights to “W.E.,” Madonna’s directorial debut of a feature film. W.E. is a romantic drama co-written by Madonna and Alek Keshishian, produced by Madonna and Kris Thykier and executive produced by Scott Franklin (BLACK SWAN). It stars Abbie Cornish (LIMITLESS), Oscar Isaac (DRIVE), James D’Arcy (MASTER AND COMMANDER: THE FAR SIDE OF THE WORLD), Andrea Riseborough (NEVER LET ME GO), Natalie Dormer (“The Tudors”), Richard Coyle (PRINCE OF PERSIA: THE SANDS OF TIME), James Fox (SHERLOCK HOLMES) and Laurence Fox (“Inspector Lewis”). The announcement was made by TWC Co-Chairman Harvey Weinstein and President of Production Donna Gigliotti.

Spanning six decades, W.E. juxtaposes a contemporary love story with that of King Edward VIII and American divorcée Wallis Simpson.

Here's a rundown of what films got picked up (and by whom) at Cannes...

...via Variety:

U.S. distribs sprang into action during Cannes, snapping up both festival specialty pics and pre-sales on big-budget commercial titles. The Weinstein Co. and Sundance Selects were the busiest buyers, while new players FilmDistrict and Open Road are starting to flex their pickup muscles.

Cannes festival films-

"The Conquest" - Music Box

"We Need to Talk About Kevin" -- Oscilloscope

"House of Tolerance" - Sundance Selects

"Kid with a Bike" - Sundance Selects

"Poliss" - Sundance Selects

"Sleeping Beauty" - Sundance Selects

"Footnote" - Sony Classics

"Dragon" - TWC

"The Artists" - TWC

Pre-sales

"Great Hope Springs" - Sony

"Snitch" - Summit

"Iron Lady" - TWC

"The Wettest County" - TWC

"Looper" - FilmDistrict

"Arabian Nights" - FilmDistrict

"Playing the Field" - FilmDistrict

Oscilloscope acquires We Need To Talk About Kevin!

From Deadline:

Oscilloscope Laboratories has acquired North American distribution rights to We Need to Talk about Kevin, the Lynne Ramsay-directed pic that was a competition film at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival. Oscilloscope will release the film in the winter, with an awards campaign.

-Joey's Two Cents: This seems like the right combination of film and studio, but that's just me. Thoughts?

Kevin Smith continues to move Red State towards a worldwide theatrical release...

...by acquiring some Canadian distribution for the flick (he always said he'd only be self-releasing the film through SModcast Pictures in the U.S.), according to The Hollywood Reporter:

Phase 4 Films has acquired Canadian rights to Kevin Smith’s Red State, which premiered at Sundance earlier this year.

Written and directed by Smith, Red State, about a group of American teens who receive an online invitation for sex, stars Michael Parks, John Goodman, Melissa Leo and Kyle Gallner.

Phase 4 plans to release the film, produced by Jon Gordon, in the coming months with a marketing and distribution campaign that will include a tour across Canada.

Red State has earned more than $850K in the box office on 15 one-night engagements.

The deal was negotiated by Larry Greenberg, svp of acquisitions for Phase 4, and Cinetic Media’s John Sloss, Sloss Eckhouse LawCo LLP’s Jerry Dasti and D2 Films’ David Dinerstein on behalf of the filmmakers.

-Joey's Two Cents: It's no secret by now I'm a fan of the film, so it's very good to know that a wider group of people will soon be able to see this unique work...thoughts?

Harvey Weinstein will try to work his Oscar magic on Meryl Streep!

How will he be doing this, you ask? Well, Deadline has the story from the Cannes Film Festival:

Another day on the Croisette brings another major distribution deal. After an all night auction, The Weinstein Company emerged with U.S. distribution rights to The Iron Lady, the Pathe pic that stars Meryl Streep as Margaret Thatcher. I'm told the deal was worth near $7 million and that Weinstein Company made it with Ron Burkle and his Yucaipa banner. I'm also told that Alliance will distribute in Canada. I'd heard last night that the likes of Summit, Relativity Media and Fox Searchlight chased it. There were at least two bids on the table at $6 million.

Numerous bidders were in on the action after Pathe showed five minutes of footage here. Harvey Weinstein will definitely open the film during Oscar season, relying on another British politics tale after The King's Speech won Best Picture honors last year. Weinstein, his lieutenant David Glasser and Burkle worked into the night to make the deal. It is the same partnership structure they employed when that made the Sundance acquisitions My Idiot Brother and The Details. For TWC, it has already been a busy fest. They acquired world rights to Paul Thomas Anderson's next film before the fest started, made a quick acquisition of the black and white silent film The Artist, and the bought the Chinese film Dragon, both official festival selectiions.

Streep reuinites with her Mamma Mia! director Phyllida Lloyd in the Abi Morgan-scripted film that also stars Harry Lloyd, Richard E. Grant and Jim Broadbent.

-Joey's Two Cents: Studios trying to double down on what worked for them last year can often be a failing endeavor, but if anyone can reverse that trend, it's Harvey Weinstein...thoughts?

The Weinstein Company makes the first purchase of Cannes!

From Deadline:

In what shapes up as the first major acquisition of the 2011 Cannes Film Festival, The Weinstein Company is near a deal to acquire U.S. and multiple international territories on The Artist, a black-and-white silent film that is written and produced by Michel Hazanavicius. The picture premieres in competition on Sunday, but I'm told several buyers chased the rights through Wild Bunch. The deal is low-seven-figure minimum guarantee, and the plan is to release the film later this year during the Oscar race.

The pic stars Jean Dujardin, Berenice Bejo, John Goodman, James Cromwell, Missi Pyle and Penelope Ann Miller. The pic takes place in 1927 Hollywood and focuses on a silent movie star whose career seems about to be ended because of the arrival of the talkies. At the same time, a pretty young extra sees the new format as an opportunity to launch her star. No official confirmation was forthcoming from The Weinstein Company. The film was a late entry to the Cannes competition but the first to make a sales splash.

-Joey's Two Cents: Here's to a lot more news like this during the month of May...thoughts?

Paul Thomas Anderson's next film will be distributed by The Weinstein Company!

Via Deadline:

The Weinstein Company has won a quiet but fevered bidding battle for worldwide distribution rights to the untitled next film by Paul Thomas Anderson. The film begins production June 13, with Philip Seymour Hoffman and Joaquin Phoenix so far set to star. Megan Ellison is financing. It is Anderson's first trip behind the camera since There Will Be Blood.

Hoffman and Phoenix are locked. As for the actresses, I'm told that Anderson is eyeing such actresses as Madisen Beaty (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) for a role, with Amy Adams, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo's Lena Endre and Laura Dern also mentioned as actresses Anderson is interested in. The auction was held at CAA headquarters late last week, with Fox Searchlight was also squarely in the mix.

This is the project that Anderson has worked on for a long time, once under the title The Master. He has greatly overhauled the script and now, Hoffman stars as a man who returns after witnessing the horrors of WWII and tries to rediscover who he is in post-war America. He creates a belief system, something that catches on with other lost souls. The film is fully financed by Ellison's Annapurna banner. At a time when the implosion of the indie film marketplace made pricey auteur films so hard to finance, Ellison has emerged as a something of a godsend to the small group of auteurs she is working with. She's enabled Anderson to make the movie at or near the $35 million budget the film was going to cost back when Universal stepped away. The deal gives TWC a big title to bring to the Cannes Film Festival this week.

-Joey's Two Cents: Harvey seems to amassing a new stable of auteurs for The Weinstein Company, much like how Mirimax used to be...thoughts?

Focus Features picks up Wes Anderson's next flick!

From The Hollywood Reporter:

Focus Features has acquired worldwide rights to Wes Anderson’s upcoming feature, Moonrise Kingdom, Focus CEO James Schamus announced Monday.

Focus will release the indie film in the U.S., while the company’s foreign sales arm will begin pitching it to foreign buyers at Cannes later this month.

Filming has begun on the project - which stars Bill Murray, Bruce Willis and Frances McDormand – about a young couple who go off to be together even though people in their small New England town are convinced they've disappeared.

Anderson is directing from an original screenplay that he wrote with Roman Coppola.

Moonrise Kingdom is being produced by Mr. Anderson, Scott Rudin, Indian Paintbrush’s Steven Rales and American Empirical’s Jeremy Dawson.

-Joey's Two Cents: I'm not big on Anderson, but I'm always willing to give a new work of his a shot...thoughts?

'The Cabin in the Woods' is finally on its way to a theater near you!

Apparently so, according to Deadline:

Lionsgate is making a deal with MGM to distribute The Cabin in the Woods, putting an end to an unexpectedly long shelf life for a horror film that has a terrific creative pedigree and a high degree of fanboy wanna-see. Cloverfield writer Drew Goddard directed the film and co-wrote it with Joss Whedon. The film's cast includes Chris Hemsworth, who made it before he was set to star as the title character in Marvel's Thor. Ironically, Whedon and Hemsworth are reuniting, with Whedon directing The Avengers, and Hemsworth reprising his hammer-swinging role. It's unclear when Lionsgate will release the film, but October is a good bet.

The delay has little to do with the quality of the film. It was once slated to be released by MGM on Oct. 23, 2009, but was pulled back because it was going to be converted to 3D. Then, everything froze at MGM because of the strangling debt load, and The Cabin in the Woods was among several pictures that languished. By the time the picture is released, Thor will have established Hemsworth's star value, which will certainly help a film that also stars Richard Jenkins and Bradley Whitford.

The Weinstein Company picks up a Documentary at Tribeca...

...and it's an interesting sounding one. Here's the story from The Hollywood Reporter:

The Weinstein Company has acquired rights to Submarine Entertainment’s The Bully Project, Lee Hirsch's documentary about bullying in America. The deal includes rights for North America, U.K., Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Germany, plus Pan-Asian Satellite TV distribution rights.

The doc, produced by Hirsch and Cynthia Lowen, and written by Lowen and Hirsch, had its Tribeca Film Festival premiere this past Saturday.

"As filmmakers we are overjoyed to be working with The Weinstein Company," Hirsch and Lowen said in a joint statement. “Their significant commitment towards this film will ensure it reaches the national stage, and will certainly amplify its capacity to effect change."

The deal was negotiated for TWC by Lawson and Vice President of Acquisitions Dan Guando; and for the filmmakers by Submarine Entertainment’s Josh Braun and David Koh.

-Joey's Two Cents: I'll see it...thoughts?

Sony Pictures Classics is close to acquiring Roman Polanski's God of Carnage!

Via Deadline:

I’m told that Sony Pictures Classics partners Michael Barker and Tom Bernard are tying up a deal to acquire US rights to God Of Carnage, the Roman Polanski-directed feature adaptation of Yasmina Reza's Tony-winning play. Polanski shot the film in Paris, with Jodie Foster, Kate Winslet, Christoph Waltz and John C. Reilly starring.

This is just one of several plum pictures currently being shopped for distribution. Others include the Phyllida Lloyd-directed Margaret Thatcher pic The Iron Lady with Meryl Streep starring (the ask is $7 million for US rights), and the Paolo Sorrentino-directed This Must Be The Place, starring Sean Penn as a bored, retired rock star who tries to find his father's killer, an ex-Nazi war criminal hiding in the U.S.

Back to God of Carnage. It's a strong cast, and counting Polanski, everyone has won Oscars except Reilly, who has been nominated. The plot: two sets of parents meet after their kids brawl in the schoolyard, and get along worse than the kids did. The Broadway show ran 452 performances with roles originated by James Gandolfini, Marcia Gay Harden, Jeff Daniels and Hope Davis. ICM packaged the film and is making the distribution deal.

-Joey's Two Cents: This seems like the right type of film for the distributor, so I imagine we'll be seeing it this fall...thoughts?

Universal picks up Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy for release this year!

From Deadline:

Universal Pictures has acquired domestic distribution rights to Tinker, Tailor, Solder, Spy, the Tomas Alfredson-directed adaptation of the John Le Carre novel that stars Gary Oldman, freshly minted Oscar winner Colin Firth, Tom Hardy, Mark Strong. and Ciaran Hinds. The rights were held by Studiocanal, and the film was produced by Working Title. Universal is eyeing a November or December release for the picture., which is in post production. Script was written by Bridget O'Connor and Peter Straughan.

The project was one of the hottest titles shopped in Berlin, where buyers watched several minutes of footage and read the script for Afredson’s follow-up to Let the Right One In. I’m told that Universal, through its first look deal with Working Title partners Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner, had a first look that it initially didn’t exercise. Then the picture got hot, with The Weinstein Company and Summit Entertainment chasing it hard. I’ve heard the bidding was in the vicinity of $5 million for domestic rights before Universal swooped in and took the project off the table. Studiocanal, which fully financed the film, will distribute in the UK, France and Germany and is handling international sales throughout the rest of the world. Bevan and Fellner produce with Robyn Slovo, with Liza Chasin, Le Carre, Peter Morgan, Douglas Urbanski, and Debra Hayward exec producing.