Magnet Releasing, the genre arm of Magnolia Pictures, has acquired U.S. rights to Christopher Smith’s “Detour,” a thriller starring three emerging stars.
Bel Powley (“Diary of a Teenage Girl”), Emory Cohen (“Brooklyn”) and Tye Sheridan (“Mud”) round out the cast in director Smith’s (“Severance,” “Black Death”) latest.
“We’ve been big fans of Christopher Smith for a long time and we’re excited to work with him again on ‘Detour,” Magnolia President Eamonn Bowles said. “Like its classic noir predecessors, the film keeps you guessing until the very end.”
“Detour” sees Sheridan as a troubled young grad student, grieving the loss of his mother in a terrible car accident and convinced his step-father had a hand in the tragedy. He drunkenly stumbles on a volatile grifter and his stripper girlfriend, played by Cohen and Powley, who draw shady alliances to help Sheridan get to the bottom of his mom’s death.
The deal was negotiated in Cannes by Magnolia SVP of Acquisitions Dori Begley and Magnolia VP of Acquisitions John Von Thaden with CAA and Bankside Films on behalf of the filmmakers.
Julie Baines of Dan Films and Jason Newmark of Newscope Films, together with Phil Hunt and Compton Ross, are producing. Head Gear Films provided production finance and Bankside Films is handling international sales.