FFI reports brisk sales on Kill The Messenger
Focus Features International (FFI) chief Alison Thompson’s team has virtually sold out the Jeremy Renner thriller at the EFM.
Michael Cuesta directs Kill The Messenger and principal photography is scheduled to begin this summer.
Rights have gone to: France (Metropolitan), Italy (Bim), Spain (DeA Planeta), Russia (Top Films), Latin America (Imagem), Australia (Transmission), Portugal (Lusomundo), the Middle East (Italia), Singapore (Shaw) and South Africa (Ster Kinekor).
Deals also closed in: Bulgaria (A Film), the Czech Republic (Blue Sky Media), Poland (Monolith), former Yugoslavia (Discovery), Hungary and Romania (Prorom), Iceland (Sena), Israel (Shani), Turkey (D Productions) and Malaysia (Golden Screen).
Universal will distribute in the UK, Germany and Scandinavia. Focus Features holds US rights to the story of investigative reporter Gary Webb, whose series of Dark Alliance articles in the mid-1990s exposed a connection between the CIA-backed Contra rebels in central America and a cocaine ring in Los Angeles.
CAA packaged the project and jointly represented sales rights with WME before FFI came on board to sell on the eve of Berlin.
Peter Landesman wrote the script and Renner and Don Handfield will produce through their production company The Combine alongside Scott Stuber.
Thompson and her team screened competition entry Promised Land from Gus Van Sant and announced that FFI will commence sales in Cannes on Turner, Mike Leigh’s J M W Turner biopic to star Timothy Spall.