Alison Thompson, co-president of Focus Features International announced numerous sales on Academy Award and BAFTA-winning director Kevin Macdonald’s (The Last King of Scotland, Touching the Void) heist thriller Black Sea, starring Jude Law (Sherlock Holmes).
In a multi-territory deal Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisition (SPWA) acquired Germany, Austria, German speaking Switzerland, Eastern Europe, Scandinavia, and Latin America. Backup Media invested against distribution rights in France, Benelux and French speaking Switzerland; E-Stars acquired China; Top Films the CIS; E1 Australia and New Zealand; Lev Cinema Israel; Ster-Kinekor South Africa; and Focus Features International is currently fielding offers in several other territories.
With a screenplay by Dennis Kelly, Black Sea is co-produced and co-financed by Focus and Film4. Focus holds the worldwide rights excluding U.K. free-TV rights, which are held by Film4.
Kevin Macdonald and Charles Steel are producing the film which stars Law as a modern-day submarine captain who is laid off by the salvage company he works for. Desperate to get even with his former employers and to prove himself, he is approached by a shadowy backer. Handed command of a submarine that is barely seaworthy, he is to rally a gang of English and Russian die-hard seafarers, outcasts and/or psychopaths all, on a mission. Their quarry is a storied sunken submarine, said to be loaded with lost gold, lying at the bottom of disputed waters in the Black Sea. The captain and his crew will have to go to the depths in more ways than one to get the loot. The closer they get to the prize, the riskier it becomes to trust one another.
(Photo Credit: Getty Images)
