Sundance 2011: IFC, Sony Pictures Worldwide find ‘Salvation’
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Another day, another major deal at the Sundance Film Festival.
IFC and Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquistions Group have teamed up to acquire North American rights to ‘Salvation Boulevard,’ George Ratliff’s comedic story about the magnetic pastor of a megachurch pastor (Pierce Brosnan) who gets himself into a host of trouble. Greg Kinnear co-stars as a congregant who gets caught up in the shenanigans.
It’s the first buy of the festival for the Sony division and the third for IFC. The company previously picked up another spiritually themed film, Patrick Wilson-starrer ‘The Ledge,’ about a standoff between an atheist and a fundamentalist, as well as Ewan McGregor’s science fiction-romance ‘Perfect Sense.’
Ratliff previously came to the festival with the literary thriller ‘Joshua,’ which sold for nearly $4 million at Sundance in 2007 but underperformed at the box office.
The news follows a pair of other theatrical acqusitions: Lionsgate acquired Lee Tamahori’s Uday Hussein drama ‘The Devil’s Double’ and Roadside Attractions picked up theatrical rights to James Marsh’s science-experiment doc ‘Project Nim,’ after HBO previously acquired television rights.
--Steven Zeitchik
