Another day passes at Sundance, and more acquisitions have been announced.
The Weinstein Company have picked up “My Idiot Brother,” the Apatovian comedy by directed by Jesse Peretz that has picked up strong buzz following its premiere. James Rocchi, our man on the ground, called the film “a story of family and forgiveness, shows us people trying to be good, trying to be more than themselves, and has amazing comedy bits ranging from huge sight gags and ba-doomp-boomp! punchlines, to razor-sharp sentences that boomerang back after they’ve whizzed by and silent expressions that convey volumes.” And with a ridiculously stacked ensemble including Paul Rudd, Elizabeth Banks, Zooey Deschanel, Emily Mortimer, Rashida Jones, Adam Scott, Steve Coogan, Hugh Dancy, Kathryn Hahn, Shirley Knight and Janet Montgomery its no surprise the film had a heavy price tag going for somewhere between $6-7 million, with a $15 million P&A guarantee. The Weinsteins won out over competitors Fox Searchlight and Relativity for the picture.
Meanwhile, Anchor Bay has snapped up the noir thriller “The Big Bang.” The film stars Antonio Banderas as a detective whose investigation into the death of a stripper who no one has ever seen, is compounded by the fact that everyone he talks to ends up dead. An early sizzle reel hit the web last year (and was promptly removed) and it looked hokey at the time. However, perhaps things have changed. The film certainly boasts a pretty solid supporting cast including William Fichtner, Sienna Guillory, Bill Duke, James Van Der Beek (!?), Sam Elliott, Delroy Lindo and Snoop Dogg. Perhaps more intriguingly, Johnny Marr has penned the score which he described as “atmospheric and Warp [Records]-like.” The film will hit theaters very soon, arriving in the second quarter of 2011.
The Sundance Film Festival continues, closing on January 30th.
