Out of the hundreds of films that screen at the Toronto International Film Festival, there’s a chance you’ll only be able to eventually a portion of them in the near future. Thankfully, the marketplace this year seems to in a buying frenzy, as things only kicked off a few days ago and we’ve got lots to report.
Update: The Wrap reports that Focus Features turned out to be the victor and have picked up the US distribution rights for Derek Cianfrance‘s The Place Beyond the Pines, starring Ryan Gosling and Bradley Cooper, for around $2.5 million and will release in 2013.
Segueing into other acquisition business, Deadline reports the company’s Dimension Films has also acquired the Eli Roth-produced horror earthquake film Aftershock, which premieres during Midnight Madness, and plans to give it a wide release in 2013, according to director Nicolas Lopez. They also picked up another Roth-produced project, Jon Watts‘ Clown, a project based on a fake trailer, but for now check out the first clip from Aftershock, which also stars Selena Gomez and Roth, below via Collider.
Another major pick-up was from Anchor Bay Films, who took US distribution for Billy Bob Thornton‘s directorial effort Jayne Mansfield’s Car, a family drama that stars the director, alongside Robert Duvall, John Hurt, Kevin Bacon, Katherine LaNasa, Ray Stevenson and Robert Patrick. Set for a premiere this Tuesday, we’ve also got news from Deadline that Mike Newell‘s adaptation of Great Expectations, starring Ralph Fiennes, Helena Bonham Carter, Jeremy Irvine and Holliday Grainger by the new startup Outsource Media Group, who is expected to find a distributor for the film soon.
Michel Gondry‘s next film, The We and the I (which we disliked at Cannes) has picked up US distribution from 108 Media and Paladin, who will give it a March 2013 limited release. Wrapping up, the Audrey Tautou-starring drama Therese Desqueyroux, from France’s Claude Miller, who sadly passed away this spring, has been picked up for a spring 2013 release by MPI Pictures. And lastly, the fishing documentary Leviathan from Lucien Castaing-Taylor (who directed one of my favorite documentaries, Sweetgrass) and Véréna Paravel (Foreign Parts) was picked up by The Cinema Guild for an early 2013 release in the US after it shows again at New York Film Festival.
Which film are you most looking forward to? What do you think of the first look at Aftershock?