IFC Films nabbed U.S. rights to “Mad Men” star John Slattery’s directorial debut film, “God’s Pocket,” the company said Wednesday.
The film screened at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival and boasts an impressive cast that includes Philip Seymour Hoffman, Richard Jenkins, John Turturro and Slattery’s “Mad Men” co-star Christina Hendricks. Slattery wrote the screenplay for the blue-collar drama with Alex Metcalf.
The pact keeps Slattery in the family as IFC is owned by AMC Networks, which broadcasts “Mad Men” on its AMC cable channel.
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The film follows a man whose insane stepson dies in a construction “accident,”setting off a newspaper investigation and a series of unforeseen consequences.
The film earned strong reviews at the festival, with “The Guardian’s” Henry Barnes writing that Slattery’s “…depiction of God’s Pocket – a fictional South Philly neighbourhood crawling with drunks, hucksters and vagabonds – near weeps with the blue collar romanticism of David O Russell’s The Fighter. But it’s in digging out the black humour in the petty criminal’s scrap to survive that Slattery distinguishes himself.”
The deal for the film was negotiated by Arianna Bocco, senior vice president of acquisitions at productions, at Sundance Selects/IFC Films, with Jay Cohen at the Gersh Agency, and attorney Marc H. Simon of Cowan DeBaets Abrahams and Sheppard, on behalf of the filmmakers.
“I’m thrilled to be working creatively with IFC, and very happy to continue my ongoing and successful relationship with AMC,” Slattery said in a statement. “We’re very proud of this film and excited to partner with IFC Films to bring it to a wide audience.”