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Terry Gilliam Sets David Thewlis, Tilda Swinton For ‘The Zero Theorem’

By MIKE FLEMING JR | Monday October 1, 2012 @ 10:31am PDTTags: David Thewlis, Terry Gilliam, The Zero Theorem, Tilda Swinton
Mike Fleming

EXCLUSIVE: Terry Gilliam has set David Thewlis, Tilda Swinton, Moonrise Kingdom‘s Lucas Hedges and French actress Melanie Thierry (The Princess Of Montpensier) to join Christoph Waltz in The Zero Theorem.

Deadline told you in August that Gilliam was moving forward with the film, and that he’d cast Inglourious Basterds‘ Waltz to play an eccentric computer genius plagued with existential angst who aims to discover the purpose of life. The film begins production October 22 in Romania. Thewlis is repped by CAA and UK-based Ken McReddie Associates, Swinton by WME and Hamilton Hodell, Hedges by Abrams Artists and Anonymous Content, and Thierry by Hamilton Hodell and UBBA. Dean Zanuck is producing and Voltage Pictures is handling worldwide sales.

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Paul Walker In Talks For Luc Besson’s ‘District B 13′ Redo ‘Brick Mansions’

By MIKE FLEMING JR | Wednesday October 26, 2011 @ 3:10pm PDTTags: Aung San Suu Kyi, David Thewlis, Luc Besson, Michael Aris, Michelle Yeoh, Paul Walker, Pierre Morel, Robert Mark Kamen
Mike Fleming

EXCLUSIVE: Paul Walker is in talks to star in Brick Mansions, the Americanized remake of the Paris-set Banlieue 13. The film has a script by Luc Besson (who co-wrote the original) and Robert Mark Kamen, Besson’s collaborator on Taken. The … Read More »

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Toronto Recap: No Drunken Spending A Good Sign For Indie Film Resurgence

By MIKE FLEMING JR | Monday September 19, 2011 @ 11:28am PDTTags: 2011 Toronto Film Festival, Adam Scott, Anthony Hopkins, Bradley Cooper, David Thewlis, Derek Cianfrance, Eamonn Bowles, Eduardo Sanchez, Fernando Meirelles, Geoffrey Fletcher, George Clooney, Jason Janego, Jennifer Westfeldt, Jon Hamm, Kristen Wiig, Lasse Hallström, Luc Besson, Michael Fassbender, Michelle Williams, Michelle Yeoh, Mickey Liddell, Oren Moverman, Ryan Gosling, Sarah Polley, Todd Wagner, Tom Quinn, William Friedkin, Woody Harrelson
Mike Fleming

Was the 2011 Toronto Film Festival a good one for dealmaking? Even after organizers announced a 20% uptick in film deals last Friday (the festival includes foreign territories in its count), the sales kept coming. A long-expected deal with Lionsgate on the Jennifer Westfeldt-directed comedy Friends With Kids finally got done (in partnership with Roadside Attractions, which will actually release the film), and Music Box announced overnight it had acquired the Rachel Weisz-starrer The Deep  Blue Sea. Lionsgate was hotly pursuing another film, the Midnight Madness sensation You’re Next, which of all the festival films seems to have the best chance of approaching the box office turned in by Toronto 2010’s breakout Insidious. There have been about 20 acquisitions so far and that many more could come in the next few weeks.

Still, can you call the Toronto acquisitions marketplace “solid” when no films have been bought so far by The Weinstein Company, Sony Pictures Classics, Focus Features, or Fox Searchlight (yeah, I revealed that they bought Shame during Toronto, but it was a deal all but sealed in Venice), or for that matter FilmDistrict, Open Road or Relativity Media, each of which jumped into the distribution business to release films that can play on upwards of 2000 screens? Buyers and sellers said it was a pretty good festival at least. One filled with mostly small deals and a show of distributor discipline that is a positive sign for an indie film sector that just started pulling out of a nosedive this time last year. Read More »

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Toronto: Distribution Deal For Luc Besson’s ‘The Lady’ Puts Michelle Yeoh And David Thewlis In Oscar Race

By MIKE FLEMING JR | Wednesday September 14, 2011 @ 4:53pm PDTTags: Aung San Suu Kyi, Bono, Carey Mulligan, Cohen Media Group, David Thewlis, Luc Besson, Michael Aris, Michael Fassbender, Michelle Yeoh, Steve McQueen, Steven Spielberg, The Edge, The Lady
Mike Fleming

EXCLUSIVE: The Oscar race just got a little more interesting. EuropaCorp has made a U.S. distribution deal with Cohen Media Group for the Luc Besson-directed The Lady, the story of Burmese pro-democracy activist and political prisoner Aung San Suu Kyi. Upstart Cohen Media Group plans to release the film for an Oscar-qualifying platform release late this year to capitalize on strong performances by Michelle Yeoh, who plays Suu Kyi, and David Thewlis, who plays her Oxford professor husband Michael Aris. The film will get a wider release in early 2012. Suu Kyi has spent most of the last 20 years under house arrest by the repressive Burmese military-controlled government. Leaders cruelly barred her husband and two sons from visiting her, thinking that it would drive her to leave. Because she knew that once gone she would never be permitted re-entry, Suu Kyi sacrificed everything to stay and become an iconic symbol of democracy and human rights. Her husband and sons bolstered her spirit and campaigned for the Nobel Peace Prize, which she was awarded in 1991. The distribution deals came quickly after the film premiered Monday evening at Roy Thomson Hall, where Besson, Yeoh and Thewlis received a rousing standing ovation. The deal was brokered by EuropaCorp Group CEO Christophe Lambert and Cohen Media Group CEO Charles S. Cohen.

The Lady becomes the second Toronto title to become an instant entry into upcoming awards season, after Fox Searchlight acquired the NC-17 Steve McQueen-directed Shame with plans to campaign for Michael Fassbender and Carey Mulligan.

After establishing himself as France’s answer to Steven Spielberg directing hits like La Femme Nikita and The Professional and co-writing and producing action films like Taken, Besson has become very selective in the projects he directs. While he has always had a soft spot for strong female protagonists, it has always been in action settings. The Lady is a decided departure and certainly his most personal film to date. Besson made it to refocus the world’s attention on an activist whose continuing plight gets easily forgotten in a turbulent world, even though she won that Nobel Peace Prize and U2′s Bono and The Edge wrote the song Walk On about her sacrifice (which got U2′s album banned in Burma). Read More »

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