Thursday, August 13, 2009

Sony In Talks To Pick Up Heath Ledger Film


Heath Ledger’s final film has finally found a Stateside buyer.

Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions Group is in advanced talks to pick up "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus," with plans for it to go out theatrically, likely this year, via Sony Pictures Classics.

Pic is expected to be a lucrative homevideo title due to the Ledger angle and the other star power. Terry Gilliam’s adventure also features Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell, who replaced Ledger in various fantasy scenes after the thesp died during the film’s production in January 2008.

"Parnassus" was officially unveiled at Cannes this year in an out-of competition slot toward the end of the festival. Several buyers screened the film just before Cannes, but a deal didn’t immediately emerge.

The "Parnassus" deal with Sony has long been in the works and could be made official this week.

The film goes out in the fourth quarter through various distributors in European territories including the U.K., France, Germany and Italy, plus Australia and New Zealand.

Thoughts:
Cool, it just means were going to get it here in the states soon judging by Sony's past scheduling. Here's the international trailer, but I hope we get a theatrical version soon.

5 comments:

Marcy said...

I'm glad that this film finally found a distributor. I know a lot of people are interested in seeing it. But the fact that it's been so difficult for the movie to even get a distributor seems that the film itself is potentially problematic.

Btw, what's the difference between a theatrical trailer and an international trailer?

2 Dollar Productions said...

Glad to hear this is likely getting picked up . . . don't know whether it will be good enough to see at the theater, but will definitely check it out as a rental someday. Good cast and director.

Farzan said...

@Marcy:
The film has had a difficult time getting a studio to distribute it because most of the studios wouldn't know how to market this film. If you have seen the international trailer I posted in this post, than you too would probably agree that the film is going to be pretty hard to market. The difference between a theatrical trailer and an indention trailer is that the theatrical trailer is shown in the US while the international one is shown around the world. I want to see what the theatrical trailer will look like because thats the one that were most likely going to see in front of upcoming movies here in the US.

@2 Dollar Productions:
I'm also debating if its worth watching in theaters. I mean the cast looks very good with alot of talent involved, but the director really hasn't had a good track record with his recent films such as The Brothers Grimm and Tideland. So Ill most likely catch it on Blu Ray later this year or maybe watch it in theaters if It turns out to be a must see.

Cruiz said...

Awesome news, cant wait!

I'm looking forward to this more so then that Burton Alice in Wonderland film.

Farzan said...

Interesting since both of them look out of this world crazy in terms of art direction. I'm still more excited about Alice though since I'm a fan of that story and enjoyed the Disney animated film.