EFM Roundup: Arclight Acquires ‘The Lookalike’, Alba Eyes ‘Weightless’, Fortissimo Has ‘Linsanity’, ‘Young Ones’ Adds Shannon, Hoult, Fanning To Cast; More
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Arclight Films has acquired crime-romance project The Lookalike which wrapped in New Orleans in time for Berlin. The cast includes John Corbett, Justin Long (who is also aboard as producer), Scottie Thompson, Jerry O’Connell, Gina Gershon, Gillian Jacobs and Luiz Guzman. The Lookalike is the tale of a drug lord’s obsession with a woman and the complications it presents for his gangland buddies who unexpectedly have to find a lookalike. The film is directed by Richard Gray who’s also a producer, and written by Michelle Davis-Gray. Clay Epstein negotiated on behalf of Arclight Films with Gray’s Yellow Brick Films. Arclight is presenting the film to buyers in Berlin.
Myriad Pictures is here pre-selling Weightless, the first directing gig for Oscar-nominated Monster’s Ball screenwriter Milo Addica. Jessica Alba is in negoatiations to star as Maysie Overall, an astronaut who causes a fatal motorcycle accident before heading off on her first space mission. When she survives the crash of her space shuttle, her conscience drives her to seek out her own victim’s family and falling for his brother, a cop, in the process. Myriad’s Kirk D’Amico will produce with Steve Norris, alongside the UK’s Apollo Productions and its partners, Pinewood Studios and Double Negative.
Fortissimo Films will sell international (outside North America and China) on Jeremy Lin documentary Linsanity. CAA is repping the U.S. on the movie about the basketball player’s meteoric rise which just premiered in Sundance. Evan Jackson Leong directed and Christopher C. Chen of Endgame Entertainment, Brian Yang of 408 Films and Allen Lu produced.
Jake Paltrow’s Young Ones is getting underway in South Africa with a cast that now includes Michael Shannon, Nicholas Hoult, Elle Fanning and Kodi Smit McPhee. Paltrow directs and wrote the story about a young boy struggling to protect his family in a world where water has become the most precious and fastest dwindling resource on the planet. Tristan Orpen Lynch produces through Subotica and Michael Auret produces through Spier Films. 6 SALES and The Exchange are handling international rights. UTA is repping North America. Peter Garde, Marina Fuentes Arredonda, Quickfire’s James Atherton and Jan Pace, and Brian O’Shea are exec producers.
Lionsgate has taken UK distribution rights on The Quiet Ones, the supernatural thriller that stars Jared Harris and Sam Claflin. Exclusive Media is selling the Hammer film that recently wrapped. Further deals have been concluded in at least 20 territories. Harris plays a charismatic but controversial professor whose methods lead his students off the grid for a dangerous experiment. It’s inspired by true events and is written and directed by John Pogue and produced by James Gay-Rees (Senna, Exit Through The Gift Shop), Exclusive Media’s Tobin Armbrust and Simon Oakes along with Steven Chester Prince and Ben Holden in association with The Travelling Picture Show Company.
Content will sell worldwide rights to Paki Smith’s adventure A Long Way Home starring Game Of Thrones‘ Peter Dinklage. Production designer and set decorator Smith has worked on such pictures as The Dark Knight Rises and Batman Begins and makes his directing debut with Long Way Home. Written by Alex Rose, the road movie is a story of friendship, courage, magic, adventure and the lengths to which one boy will go to reunite his family. Principal photography starts in April. Star Wars‘ Rick McCallum is exec producing with Paul Michels. Justin Moore-Lewy, David Collins and Charlie Mason are producers.
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