EXCLUSIVE: Tribeca Film and Focus World have picked up Greetings From Tim Buckley, starring Gossip Girl’s Penn Badgley. Tribeca will release the Daniel Algrant-directed film theatrically next year, with the companies working together on VOD and other digital platforms. The film, which debuted at this year’s Toronto Film Festival, follows Jeff Buckley in the days leading up his 1991 tribute concert to his distant and now deceased father. Badgley plays the younger Buckley, who shot to fame in the 1990s before drowning in Tennessee’s Wolf River in 1997. Imogen Poots also stars. Algrant, Emma Sheanshang and David Brendel penned the screenplay; the Smuggler Films pic was produced by Patrick Milling Smith, John Hart, Amy Nauiokas and Fred Zollo. Tribeca Film’s director of acquisitions Nick Savva; and Focus’ EVP Strategic Planning, Business Affairs and Acquisitions Avy Eschenasy and Kent Sanderson, Director, Alternative Content & Distribution, negotiated the deal with CAA and Hengameh Panahi of Celluloid Dreams for the filmmakers. Greetings is the first of three Buckley films to be released: Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark’s Reeve Carney signed on last year for another Buckley biopic, and Mad Bastards director Brendan Fletcher is mounting is A Pure Drop, based on the book A Pure Drop: The Life Of Jeff Buckley.

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