Mike Fleming

EXCLUSIVE 2ND UPDATE: Two days after buying English speaking rights to Another Earth, Fox Searchlight has acquired worldwide rights to the film. That makes Searchlight’s minimum guarantee commitment around $3 million. Relative to its $150,000 budget, Another Earth walks away with one of the bigger commitments to a small film in recent memory, maybe since The Blair Witch Project. The picture has received glowing reviews for director Mike Cahill and the script he wrote with Brit Marling. She stars with William Mapother in a drama with sci-fi elements. Foreign buyers responded, and the sellers scheduled a screening in Hollywood today. Much to the chagrin of buyers, it has been canceled, after Searchlight stepped up last night and closed in a deal with WME Global’s Graham Taylor, Preferred Content’s Kevin Iwashina, and Andre Des Rochers. It is one of two WME-brokered pictures expected to go today. The other is the Dito Montiel-directed The Son Of No One. Despite a trade slam piece, the movie has five distributors circling, and the auction is around $2 million so far, I hear. The deal could be done before the film’s official premiere this evening. WME is brokering that deal with Cassian Elwes.

EARLIER, WEDNESDAY, 3:57 AM: Fox Searchlight is closing a deal for Another Earth, the Mike Cahill-directed drama that premiered Monday. The deal for English-speaking territory rights is around 1 million. It has been a busy fest for Searchlight, which also acquired Homework, Martha Marcy May Marlene, and remake rights to The Bengali Detective. WME Global brokered the deal, with Kevin Iwashina, after yet another all-night bargaining session. In the drama, an MIT astrophysics student leans out her car window to glimpse a newly discovered planet and slams into a minivan and kills the family in it. After a prison stretch, she tries to gain closure by meeting the surviving father. The new planet also factors in to the drama. (Sharon Swart is assisting Deadline’s Sundance coverage)