Italy’s Eagle Pictures, Leone Film Group Swoop on Kathryn Bigelow’s ‘Detroit’

Italy’s Eagle Pictures and Leone Film Group have jointly purchased Italian rights to Kathryn Bigelow’s upcoming race-riot crime drama “Detroit” in the most high-profile Italian territory deal to surface so far out of Cannes.

Raffaella Leone, managing director of Leone Film Group, said the deal was closed with Megan Ellison’s Annapurna Pictures which produced “Detroit” in tandem with Bigelow.

Financial details were not disclosed.

Ellison’s expanding mini-major is using “Detroit” to launch it’s new marketing and distribution division which on Monday announced a multi-year distribution deal with Entertainment One. However that agreement for five major international territories does not cover Italy.

Leone Film Group, which was originally founded by spaghetti western master Sergio Leone, has a pact in place with Eagle Pictures, the prominent Italian indie distribution company owned by Franco-Tunisian mogul Tarak Ben Ammar, under which they split costs and profits for distribution of select titles on all Italian platforms. Pics they have already co-released in Italy include “Hacksaw Ridge” and “John Wick: Chapter 2.”

Set against the backdrop of the city’s summer of 1967 riots, which were prompted by a police raid, “Detroit” stars John Boyega (pictured) as a policeman and an ensemble cast comprising John Krasinski, Jason Mitchell, Anthony Mackie, Will Poulter, Ben O’Toole, Jack Reynor, Jacob Latimore, Joseph David-Jones, Algee Smith, Kaitlyn Dever and Hannah Murray.

“Detroit” is scheduled to hit U.S. theatres via Annapurna on August 4. The pic’s Italian release date has not been set.

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