"Wire" star will play the god Heimdall in Marvel pic.
Park City Star Movies Don't Make the Sale
A slew of star-laden vehicles from this year’s festival remain in limbo, despite the fact that plenty of other films – mainly without stars – were bought for distribution.
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Disney released a triptych of posters for this spring's "Alice in Wonderland" on Thursday. The posters give audiences a look at Johnny Depp's Mad Hatter, Helena Bonham Carter's Red Queen, Anne Hathaway's White Queen, and Mia Wasikowska's Alice. Take a look at the avant-garde art for Tim Burton's upcoming 3D fantasy flick.
The prospect of Jim Carrey making out with Ewan McGregor was just the kind of thing that got the media buzzing during the Sundance Film Festival.
But four weeks later, “I Love You Philip Morris,” a dark comedy featuring Carrey as a gay con man and McGregor as his prison lover, is still not sold, and the producer says it has been taken off the market.
Other star-laden vehicles from this year’s independent film festival remain in limbo, despite the fact that plenty of other films – mainly without stars – were bought for distribution.
"Paper Heart," a quirky, low budget mockumentary starring recent Hollywood “It” kid Michael Cera, attracted buyer attention at Sundance but left the festival without a sale.
“Brief Interviews with Hideous Men," an adaptation of the late writer David Foster Wallace's work and the directorial debut of John Krasinski, remains the strangest of the Sundance star vehicles -- continues to reside in distribution limbo.
"The Greatest," a drama starring Pierce Brosnan and Susan Sarandon as grieving parents whose child dies in a car accident has not sold.
Festival buzz is not always the same thing as mainstream success – even when big stars are attached.
In the case of several titles from last month's Sundance Film Festival, the route to theatrical distribution has proven difficult, to say the least.
While a few movies with marquee names appear close to landing deals, a number of others are finding themselves faced with no buyers, the result of the lack of mainstream appeal and a tough distribution market.
"Going into the screening, it's an available film with Michael Cera," Urman said. "Coming out of it, people are lazy. They don't want to work to sell the available film with Michael Cera."
”If someone cynically packages a movie they think will sell just because it has stars, they're probably in for trouble," said sales agent Josh Braun of Submarine Entertainment.
"Those films will sell," insisted Andrew Herwitz, president of The Film Sales Company, which sold the Sundance drama "Adam" to Fox Searchlight during the festival.
He added: "If it's a film that has somebody with marketing value, but it's a more difficult film, the price may not be large.
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