Leading UK independent distributor Entertainment Film Distributors has picked up Robert Altman's Gosford Park.

Entertainment is expected to release the 1930s murder-mystery film in the first quarter of next year. USA Films, which took the film as a negative pick-up, is to open it in December in the US in the hunt for Academy Awards.

The film, sold and financed by the UK's Capitol Films, is the biggest-budget title to receive UK National Lottery funding from Government-backed body the Film Council's Premiere Fund for commercially-oriented films. Well-received at a recent screening in London, it was granted $2.9m (£2m) from the Premiere Fund, the biggest amount invested in a single project by the council to date.

Gosford Park is the second Premiere Fund title to go to Entertainment after the distributor pre-bought Steve Barron's football mockumentary, Mike Bassett: England Manager. The Film Council is expected to share p&a costs on some films it funds on a title-by-title basis, although Gosford Park is not expected to fall under that arrangement, according to Capitol's Jane Barclay. Gosford Park's extensive cast of leading local talent includes Kristin Scott Thomas, Jeremy Northam Charles Dance, Richard E. Grant and Emily Watson. US actor Ryan Phillippe also stars.