Latest in Acquisitions

EXCLUSIVE: In a competitive situation, Colombia Pictures has acquired the rights to Teddy Wayne's upcoming dark thriller, The Winner which Amy Pascal has come aboard to produce through her Pascal Pictures with Rachel O’Connor. Wayne is adapting his own tome for the big screen. The novel hits shelves…

EXCLUSIVE: PhantomFX, an Indian VFX powerhouse that has worked on everything from The Avengers and The Walking Dead franchise to Outlander, is set to acquire a majority stake in Tippett Studio, the animation and visual effects production company of Oscar-winning filmmaker Phil Tippett. Under the…

EXCLUSIVE: Freestyle Digital Media, the digital film distribution division of Byron Allen's Allen Media Group, has acquired North American rights to the romantic comedy The Zombie Wedding. The film is based on the eponymous interactive play and is the first title to launch the Weekly World News IP-driven…

EXCLUSIVE: Altitude Media Group has boarded a documentary shot entirely inside the Grand Theft Auto video game world. Grand Theft Hamlet will follow the story of out-of-work theater actors Sam Crane and Mark Oosterveen, who had the idea to stage a full production of Shakespeare’s ‘Hamlet’ within Grand…

EXCLUSIVE: Sony has preemptively closed a deal for film rights to Grady Hendrix’s short story “Ankle Snatcher,” tapping Hendrix to adapt it for the screen, sources tell Deadline. Hendrix is also set to produce alongside Escape Artists’ Todd Black, Jason Blumenthal and Tony Shaw, as well as Aperture…

Jeff Zucker did not hold back today in taking on some of Britain’s biggest media stalwarts as RedBird IMI pushes on with its bid to buy The Telegraph and Spectator publications. Speaking to The News Agents podcast, the former CNN boss hit out at Andrew Neil, chair of The Spectator, and Paul…

You can tell it’s spring. In Vermont, sap flows out of maple trees. But for Hollywood, movies go off like fireworks in the Lone Star State at SXSW. The third edition of the Austin festival since coming out of the pandemic — and dual strikes — hasn’t lost its shine: When it comes to creating an…

EXCLUSIVE: In a competitive situation with multiple studios bidding, 20th Century Studios has reeled in theatrical distribution rights to Imagine Entertainment’s thriller Whalefall, based on the recently published novel by bestseller Daniel Kraus. Aboard to co-write, direct, and produce the film is…

EXCLUSIVE: The Sydney Sweeney & Paul Walter Hauser title, Americana, which was one of the prolific acquisition titles from last year’s SXSW, has finally seen its worldwide rights go to Lionsgate. Why did a movie with big stars and 100% on Rotten Tomatoes take so long to sell? I understand part of…

EXCLUSIVE: Lisa Steen’s debut feature Late Bloomers, starring Karen Gillan (Guardians of the Galaxy franchise), is the latest starry festival indie to have secured North American distribution through Vertical. Other recent pickups for Vertical include the Sundance genre-bender Your Monster starring…

EXCLUSIVE: Ahead of its world premiere at SXSW on Saturday (March 9), feature doc Plastic People: The Hidden Crisis of Microplastics has found an international distributor in the UK’s Rainmaker Content. The 90-minute film from Canada’s White Pine Pictures investigates the global addiction to plastic…

EXCLUSIVE: The BBC has bought Viaplay’s Rebus reboot, following international streamer Viaplay’s decision to exit the UK. In further news, we can reveal Australia’s SBS has also acquired the show from distributor Viaplay Content Distribution. Set in Edinburgh, the series stars Richard Rankin (Outlande…