EXCLUSIVE: Hyde Park-Image Nation and Blumhouse Productions are beginning principal photography next week on Prey, a horror-thriller film directed by Franck Khalfoun ( Amityville: The Awakening).
The logline for the pic, which is written by MTV Scream series scribe David Coggeshall, is being kept under wraps.
After its smash international World Premiere in Venice, director Ramin Bahrani’s 99 Homes — an absolutely riveting drama about the 2008 home foreclosure crisis — had its North American premiere here at the Telluride Film Festival, and it has set this place ablaze. Despite lots of interest, as there should be, from domestic distributors, Bahrani told me immediately after this morning’s screening that the financiers behind the film are waiting until its Toronto debut next week to finalize anything. Starring Andrew Garfield and Michael Shannon in career-best performances, this movie is not only a no-brainer for a quick distribution deal, it could be the rare — here comes that five letter word you hate so much, studios — drama that also could be a commercial powerhouse. Few films I have seen in recent years have cut so close to the bone as this one does. Americans, in particular, will respond strongly, and if ever there was a word-of-mouth movie, this is it.
The good news for director Ramin Bahrani's New Orleans-shot drama "99 Homes" is that, fresh off its well-received screenings at the recent Toronto, Telluride and Venice film festivals, it has landed a U.S. distributor. The bad news is that any Oscar hopes for the film are going to have to wait for at least a year.
Broad Green Pictures has picked up the domestic distribution rights to Bahrani's film, starring Andrew Garfield and Michael Shannon, in a $3 million deal, according to Deadline. What's more, Broad Green is planning an Oscar push, but not until 2015, when it has scheduled the film for release.
LOS ANGELES, Calif. — Amidst what appears to be a divisive political climate in the United States is an effort to foster global unity and societal change through inspirational programming, thanks to a partnership between Indian American film producer Ashok Amritraj’s Hyde Park Entertainment and Global Citizen.
The two entities joined forces to produce a music film – “Louder Together” – to help address several sustainability development goals.
“Louder Together,” narrated by actor Hugh Jackman, aims to show the power of collective action around the world. The music festivals at the heart of “Louder Together” have raised billions of dollars to reach millions of people suffering from hunger, poverty and other sustainability ills, according to Global Citizen.
EXCLUSIVE: The Hangover‘s Ken Jeong has signed on to star in a comedy currently known as Untitled Celebrity Death Pool, to be co-produced by Ashok Amritraj’s Hyde Park Entertainment, Image Nation Abu Dhabi, and WWE Studios. Jeong will play a struggling nightclub owner in debt to a loan shark who sets out to win his long-running celebrity death pool by offing his chosen celebrity: David Hasselhoff.
EXCLUSIVE: Ocean Blue Entertainment, in conjunction with CJ Entertainment, Echo Lake and Ingenious Media, have set the financing for Christ The Lord, a feature adaptation of the Anne Rice bestselling novel Christ The Lord: Out of Egypt. A September 15 start date has been set in Italy. Focus Features, which obtained U.S. distribution rights from the movie’s original domestic distributor FilmDistrict when Peter Schlessel took over the former, is planning a wide U.S. release and Hyde Park International is handling the sale of foreign rights. 1492 Pictures will produce with Ocean Blue, CJ Entertainment, Hyde Park and Ingenious.
It isn’t much of a surprise to see Ashok Amritraj, 56, in a tracksuit and flip-flops. Sports is in his genes. He is in the middle of one of his frequent whirlwind trips to Chennai and Mumbai. The former tennis player, the youngest of the three Amritraj brothers from Chennai, and now one of Hollywood’s leading movie producers—chief executive and chairman of Hyde Park Entertainment—is meeting “friends from the film world" and young film-makers with ideas.
EXCLUSIVE: Hyde Park Entertainment has picked up Lee Batchler and Janet Scott Batchler’s spec script Jack & Dick, which charts the fascinating true story of the little-known friendship between political rivals John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon, from their early years as Senators to the race for the Presidency, leading up to the historic 1960’s televised debate.
A director will soon be announced for the project which is in the spirit of the Oscar-nominated film Frost/Nixon, with production scheduled for the first quarter of next year.
EXCLUSIVE: Ashok Amritraj’s Hyde Park International has taken foreign sales on Alex Pettyfer’s directorial debut Back Roads, which stars the Magic Mike actor and Oscar and Golden Globe-nominated Juliette Lewis.
The dramatic thriller is based on Tawni O’Dell’s New York Times bestseller of the same name, which was also chosen as an Oprah’s Book Club selection in March 2000. Oscar-nominated Fatal Attraction filmmaker Adrian Lyne and O’Dell wrote the screenplay adaptation of the novel with Lyne serving as EP.
Ashok Amritraj’s Hyde Park International has taken international sales on the feature adaptation of the Anton Chekhov play The Seagull starring Annette Bening and Saoirse Ronan. Pic is currently in the final stages of post production. The Seagull was previously represented by K5.
Pic is directed by Michael Mayer, who is best known as the Tony Award-winning theater director of the hit Broadway musicals Spring Awakening, American Idiot, and Hedwig and the Angry Inch as well as feature director of A Home at the End of the World. Corey Stoll, Elisabeth Moss and newcomer Billy Howle also star.
