‘American Animals’: The Orchard & MoviePass Ventures Grab Sundance Pic For North America – Update

Sundance Film Festival

UPDATED, 4:55 PM: Confirming Deadline’s story from this morning, the Orchard has teamed with MoviePass Ventures to seal a deal for North American rights to writer-director Bart Layton’s heist thriller American Animals, which premiered at Sundance. A source tells Deadline the deal is for $3M with a significant P&A commitment.

It’s the first pickup for the nascent MoviePass Ventures. The deal was negotiated by Danielle DiGiacomo, VP of Acquisitions for The Orchard, and Khalid Itum, VP of Business Development, and Zac Bright, Director of Business Development, from MoviePass & MoviePass Ventures, with Vince Holden at AI Film and UTA Independent Film Group on behalf of the filmmakers.

PREVIOUSLY, 10:54 AM: The Orchard is progressing on making a domestic rights deal for American Animals, the heist thriller written and directed by Bart Layton that just premiered in competition at the Sundance Film Festival. Sources on the film side say there are several parties still angling, though a deal is said to be imminent. It would come after STXinternational acquired UK rights to the U.S. Dramatic Competition pic in a rare territory pickup at the fest.

UTA Independent Film Group repped domestic rights to the pic, which is based on a true story. It stars Evan Peters, Barry Keoghan, Blake Jenner, Jared Abrahamson, Ann Dowd and Udo Kier and centers on four unremarkable young men who attempt to pull off one of the most audacious art thefts in recent history, from a university’s special collections library.

The pic, one of Deadline’s hot Sundance sales titles, bowed in Park City on Friday afternoon at the Eccles.

Derrin Schlesinger, Katherine Butler, Dimitri Doganis and Mary Jane Skalski are producers. Executive producers are Daniel Battsek, Sam Lavender, Len Blavatnik, Aviv Giladi, Toby Hill, Piers Vellacott, Tory Metzger and Darren Demetre.

We will update this when the deal makes.

Original Article

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Deadline

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