Plus: NATO announces Q3 average US ticket price; Samuel Goldwyn picks up 100 Streets; and more…

Rogue One i

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story director Gareth Edwards will speak at SXSW 2017 in Austin, Texas, conference and festival organisers have announced.

The festival, which runs from March 10-17, will feature approximately 700 sessions and keynote speakers who besides Edwards include Everest photographer Cory Richards and Transparent creator Jill Soloway.

Panel sessions will cover topics such as innovation in the digital health age and the role of the government in disruption. Click here for further details.

  • The average cost of a ticket in the US in the third quarter reached $8.51, the National Association Of Theatre Owners announced on Tuesday. The price marks a 2.5% drop on the second quarter and a 3/1% year-on-year hike.
  • Uri Singer’s BB Film Productions has optioned rights to Don DeLillo’s novel White Noise and has set Michael Almereyda to adapt the screenplay about a professor of Hitler studies at a Midwestern liberal arts college who experiences the release of a noxious chemical cloud over his town. Singer and Almereyda collaborated on Experimenter and Marjorie Prime.
  • Samuel Goldwyn Films has picked up US rights from UMedia Jim O’Hanlon’s LA Film Festival selection 100 Streets starring Idris Elba and Gemma Arteron. The story about interconnected Londoners will open release theatrically and on demand on January 13, 2017.
  • IFC Films has acquired North American rights from CAA to Rafael Palacio Illingworth’s romance Between Us. Olivia Thirlby, Ben Feldman, Adam Goldberg, Analeigh Tipton, Lesley Ann Warren, Peter Bogdanovich and Scott Haze star in the Tribeca Film festival premiere and IFC will release in January 2017.
  • Momentum Pictures has taken North American rights off the table to Darren Lynn Bousman’s Abattoir and will open the horror film theatrically, on VOD and digital on December 9. Jessica Lowndes, Joe Anderson, Lin Shaye and Dayton Callie star. eOne brokered the deal for Momentum with Verve Ventures and Rosen Law Group for the filmmakers.
  • Jeremy Strong, Chris Chalk, Austin Hébert, Ephraim Sykes, Laz Alonso, Nathan Davis Jr., Malcolm David Kelley, Peyton Alex Smith and Leon Thomas III have rounded out the cast on Kathryn Bigelow’s Untitled Detroit Project. Annapurna Pictures finances, produces and represents worldwide rights.
  • CBS has ordered Candy Crush, a one-hour, live-action game show series based on the mobile game franchise. Pulse Creative will produce in association with Lionsgate Television, King Ltd and CBS Television Studios. CBS Television Distribution will distribute in the US and Lionsgate will handle international sales.
  • Jon Favreau will receive the Cinema Audio Society Filmmaker Award at the 53rd Annual CAS Awards in Los Angeles on February 18, 2017. Favreau directed The Jungle Book as well as Iron Man, Iron Man 2 and and Elf.
  • The Santa Barbara International Film Festival will close on February 11 with EuropaCorp’s Their Finest. Lone Sherfig directed the film, which recently premiered in Toronto. EuropaCorp will release in the US On March 24. The festival runs from February 1-11, 2017. 
  • Uncork’d Entertainment has picked up Eric Blue’s sci-fi thriller Beacon Point, about an unseen force that terrorises hikers on the Appalachian Trail. The distributor plans to release the Blue Lantern Films title in 2017.
  • Silver Plane Films will produce the noir D.O.A. Blood River, which producers Stephen C. Sepher, Rory Fradella, Kim Barnard and Nazo Bravo have earmarked for a November shoot in Louisiana. Stephen C. Sepher wrote the screenplay and will direct, while the cast includes Billy Flynn, Chris Mulkey and D.B. Sweeney.