The 2011 Sundance Film Festival might be winding down with a flurry of sales, but one guy got that part out of the way early: Morgan Spurlock, whose documentary about the omnipresence of product placement, cheekily titled POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold, landed a distribution deal with Sony Pictures Classics last week before the festival began. That freed up the Super Size Me filmmaker to chat with Movieline's Elvis Mitchell about his special brand of "cotton-candy flavored spinach," selling out with style, and that time he turned down remaking Revenge of the Nerds.
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The key word in today's Sundance business report is "developing." As in, two of the three films are on the verge of finalizing deals, but we'll have to wait until later today to get final confirmation on the distributor. Regardless though, expect to see this entire batch in theaters in the near future. And it's quite a group! Today we've got the film about Uday Hussein's body double, the Miranda July film narrated by a cat and the one where Ewan McGregor and Eva Green probably get naked.
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Forget Lizzie Olsen; the breakout star of Sundance 2011 is clearly 67-year-old Rutger Hauer, who's taken Park City by storm with his star turn in Jason Eisener's grindhouse homage Hobo with a Shotgun. To celebrate the gory, tongue-in-cheek vigilante tale about -- yes -- a homeless hero with a shotgun, the Hobo folks hosted a thematically relevant Bloody Mary hour this morning where Hauer walked in wielding his titular firearm and regaled Movieline with six important revelations/life lessons:
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The mass walkouts were the first indication that Mark Pellington's I Melt with You was heading for a rocky Sundance reception; even critics who'd made it through couldn't wait to spill out into the hallways and let the vitriol fly. I Melt with You was, effectively, the first hands-down bomb of the festival. But does Pellington's midlife-crisis male-bonding thriller -- which was picked up today by Magnolia Pictures -- deserve all the flack?
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Expect more to come about this film from Movieline's Park City bureau, but for now, rest assured that those puzzling I Melt With You videos you saw here last week will soon (hopefully) make all the more sense: Magnolia Pictures just announced it has picked up Mark Pellington's polarizing Sundance premiere for US distribution. ""Thomas Jane, Rob Lowe, Jeremy Piven and Christian McKay give some of the best performances of their entire careers and attention must be paid," said Magnolia acquisitions boss Tom Quinn in a statement. Exciting! And, as always, developing...
One more Sundance acquisition to start the morning: Fox Searchlight will be bringing Mike Cahill's low-budget sci-fi film Another Earth to theaters. Starring co-writer Brit Marling, the film involves a promising MIT student who kills a talented composer's family in a car crash the same night that a duplicate version of earth is discovered orbiting the sun. So yes, it's not just some letdown-metaphor title! No release date on this one yet. [Deadline]
When Lucky McKee's Sundance horror entry The Woman premiered in Park City and promptly elicited walkouts, a panic injury, and one irate moviegoer's infamous YouTubed rant, some -- okay, Movieline -- wondered if it was all a stunt. (For a personal retelling of the shouting match that followed, read Drew McWeeny's firsthand account.) To set the record straight, Movieline went straight to the source for McKee's version of what went down when the credits started rolling.
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"But I really want to direct" isn't just a cliché -- it's also a burning ambition among the movies' thespian class. And where better for actors-turned-filmmakers to premiere their wares than the Sundance Film Festival? This year's aspirants to the hyphenate throne of Clooney, Eastwood and Dennis Dugan include:
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James Franco has been an Academy Award nominee for a little less than two hours now, but he's already fired his first shot across the bows of The Social Network and other "classically made" but utterly conventional Hollywood offerings -- Oscar front-runners or not. And he let it rip exclusively in conversation with Movieline.
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Besides Fox Searchlight's surprising acquisition of Martha Marcy May Marlene, high-profile sales at Sundance slowed some yesterday. There were a few pick-ups, including Ridley Scott's You Tube project and a New York Times documentary, but the bigger deals yesterday seemed to be for remake rights to documentaries. Danny McBride and David Gordon Green even got in on the action! Details on all of the business after the jump, including more Elizabeth Olsen.
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Well, I got the bidding-war part right, but I'm somewhat surprised to hear Fox Searchlight was the one to grab the tiny, acclaimed rehabbing-cult-member drama Martha Marcy May Marlene off the Sundance market. The distributor closed the deal this afternoon; neither a sale price nor a release date are set, but count on fall 2011 for an Elizabeth Olsen awards push. And alternate title suggestions remain welcome! [Fox Searchlight]
While Movieline's Sundance bureau had its cameras trained on ingénues, warbling auteurs and various other festival luminaries, another stirring scene was captured at the premiere of Lucky McKee's latest horror effort The Woman: An angry viewer removed from the screening argued the film had no artistic value and should be confiscated and burned. And he was just getting warmed up.
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Park City got downright crazy Sunday night, with Kevin Smith's Red State "auction" alienating sales agents and bloggers alike and reports of audience unrest at a midnight screening of Lucky McKee's latest horror pic. And then Korean director Bong Joon-Ho (The Host, Mother) took the mic at the raucous Fantastic Fest/Magnet Releasing karaoke party to warble a little Billy Joel as hundreds of partygoers cheered him on.
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Kevin Smith isn't the only person making waves at Sundance (thankfully); newcomer Elizabeth Olsen debuted two films at the festival, and her performances in both have been so well-received that she's already being hailed as the breakthrough performer in Park City this year. Olsen spoke with Movieline's Alonso Duralde at the Levi's Dockers House on Main Street about how difficult it was to film the one-shot horror wonder Silent House, her revelatory turn in Martha Marcy May Marlene, the star-studded project she has coming up next, and just what it's like to be an It Girl. Click ahead to watch.
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