06/06/2007

The selection of deals closed during a busy but expensive Cannes market continues from the previous article.

Nordisk Film pre-bought for Scandinavia Wayne Kramer’s drama Crossing Over, starring Ray Liotta, Sean Penn, and Ashley Judd; White Jazz, the screen adaptation of James Elroy’s crime novel with George Clooney in the lead; Roman Polanski’s forthcoming epic Pompei; Der Baader-Meinhof Komplex, directed by Uli Edel for German producer Bernd Eichinger; and The Young Victoria by the Québécois Jean-Marc Vallée (C.R.A.Z.Y.).

Sandrew Metronome pre-bought for Scandinavia Fernando Meirelles’ thriller Blindness from Focus Features; UK comedy on Intandem Films’s line-up How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, starring Kirsten Dunst and Jeff Bridges; the family film Nim’s Island with Jodie Foster; and Fortissimo’s US pick-up Mama’s Boy, starring Diane Keaton and Jeff Daniels.

Jim Frazee, head of Scanbox Entertainment’s operations in Norway, said he bought four films for theatrical distribution in Scandinavia: Capitol Films tiles Incendiary, a political thriller by Sharon Maguire (Bridget Jones’ Diary), and Black Water Transit, starring Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson; and Defiance by Edward Zwick (Blood Diamond), featuring Daniel Craig and acquired from Essential Entertainment.

Lastly, describing Julian Schabel’s The Diving Bell and the Butterfly [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] as “one of the best films I’ve seen in years,” Frazee said he planned to release the French-language film during the first quarter of 2008 to dovetail with Miramax’s planned Academy Awards campaign in the US.