Picturehouse Catches ‘Fox’ for U.S.

After two years of tracking, Picturehouse Distribution has acquired the US distribution rights to Luc Jacquet's The Fox and the Child, a children’s tale hoping to match the mega-success of Jacquet’s March of the Penguins. The feature will be based on Jacquet’s childhood adventures and will use a combination of nature shots and trained fox footage.

The English language film will use a narrative-documentary format with a female actress providing the voice over. Picturehouse prexy Bob Berney says that since there is so little on screen dialogue, he may hire a well known actress for the VO and shoot her in additional scenes in the feature. The tale will be played out as an adult female telling of following a fox into the woods outside her home when she was a girl.

The project, said to run $13 million, started location shooting last March in France, Italy and Romania and Picturehouse based its acquisition on 40 minutes of completed footage. The production team behind Fox is the same that brought Penguins to the big screen. Berney says the film “has the feel of a classic children’s book.” He expects it to be heavily skewed to a children’s audience, but hopes parents will find it appealing as well.

Bertille Noel-Bruneau is set to star alongside the trained fox, with documentary film added to fill in the gaps. Picturehouse Senior VP of Acquisition Sara Rose says, “I've always been interested in unusual kids' films and nature documentaries and with films like 'Penguins' and 'Winged Migration,' it's great now that they're more commercially viable.”

Jacquet hopes to have the film finished in time for the Cannes Festival in May, and is looking for a Christmas release in several overseas markets. Picturehouse expects an early 2008 global release.