They made a small blip on the radar with the Cannes pick-up of Carlos Marques-Marcet’s SXSW-winning 10000km, and until the press release was announced, we thought they were known more as a production entity with the TIFF-preemed Learning to Drive from Spanish helmer Isabel Coixet. But make no mistake about it, Daniel Hammond’s Broad Green Pictures is coming out of the woodworks by swinging for the fences — landing the critically lauded Ramin Bahrani film that surfaced in perfect Telluride-Venice-TIFF trifecta. U.S rights were picked up for a cool $3 million with what was probably an interesting P&A commitment. A spring of 2015 release is expected for 99 Homes, meaning we can expect this to go the Jeff Nichols’ Mud/Derek Cianfrance The Place Beyond the Pines route of being among the earliest award mentions in the calendar year.
Gist: Co-written by Bahrani, filmmaker Amir Naderi and Bahareh Azimi, this is set in sunny Orlando, Florida, where construction worker Dennis Nash (Andrew Garfield) is evicted from his home by a charismatic, gun-toting real-estate broker Mike Carver (Michael Shannon), and forced to move his mom (Laura Dern) and young son into a shabby motel. Carver seduces Nash into a risky world of stealing from banks and the government. Nash makes big money; but there’s a cost. On Carver’s orders, Nash must evict honest families from their homes – just as it happened to him- and will have to choose between destroying an honest man for the ultimate win or going against Carver and finding redemption.
Worth Noting: Broad Green Pictures are also producing Blue Ruin‘s Jeremy Saulnier’s next film: Green Room. Production was set to being in the fall of this year.
Do We Care?: Several critic insiders call this a major step up from Bahrani’s first try with bigger budgeted fare (At Any Price) and of course, Michael Shannon slays once again. We’re fans of the helmer’s humanist and soci0-political-almost anthropological approach and it’s a delight to see some new players getting into the distribution game.
