Last year’s most expensive pick up in Park City was the crowd pleasing Little Miss Sunshine – this year another crowd pleaser was the center of a bidding war. This year a film pegged as a "Millions" meets "Billy Elliott" was given the biggest paycheck of them all. Paramount Vantage beat out rivals for worldwide distribution (excluding 3 countries) for Son of Rambow.
Add a new name to the list of Mexican filmmakers that will leave a filmic imprint stateside. Featured in the Spectrum section at Sundance, worldwide rights to La Misma Luna (The Same Moon) was picked up for a cool $5 million-$6 million. Searchlight will take the lead in the Americas, while the two companies will pick and choose which will handle international territories on a case-by-case basis.
The effort of three Atlanta-based directors David Bruckner, Jacob Gentry, and Dan Bush, The Signal follows a small group of characters struggling to survive the anarchy that follows a bizarre, mind-altering broadcast (called a ‘terminus’) that turns anyone exposed to it into a homicidal maniac.
White text over a black screen begins the story: a man is dropped off at an emergency room in a rural section Washington. The man is suffering from massive internal bleeding, his colon destroyed, and dies. Police use surveillance camera footage to track the car to an isolated horse farm and discover hours of video footage of men having sex with horses. And thus begins Zoo from director Robinson Devor (his third doc to screen at Sundance, his previous credits include the critically acclaimed The Woman Chaser and Police Beat), making it’s world premiere in the Documentary Competition.