French sales and financing house, Wild Bunch, has acquiredFrench rights to Dimension's Sin Cityfor its new distribution arm, Pan-Europeenne Edition.

The deal was concluded with Miramax International inDecember. Although Miramax has its own distribution joint-venture, TFM, withTF1 in France, Miramax has the option to sell to the highest local bidder. TFMreportedly did not match the acquisition offer from Pan-Europeenne.

Sin City is directedby Roberto Rodriguez in collaboration with graphic artist Frank Miller, uponwhose comics the film is based. It opened in the US on April 1 to ravereviews. Cast includes awho's who of Hollywood with Bruce Willis, Benicio Del Toro, Clive Owen,Elijah Wood, Josh Hartnett, Rosario Dawson, Jessica Alba, Jaime King and MickeyRourke in what is being touted as a comeback role. Quentin Tarantino also guestdirected a scene.

Pan-Europeenne's deputy managing directorJean-Philippe Tirel told ScreenDaily.com,"The film has great theatrical and huge DVD potential." Tirel willspearhead a Euros 1.5m ad campaign for the film which will go out on June 1 on 400-450 screens in France.

Although the comic on which the film is based is not as wellknown in France as it is in English-speaking territories, Tirel says it doeshave cult status.

Tirel adds that the move with Sin City is emblematic of a new strategy at Pan-Europeenne."We will position ourselves on major films for France and really golooking for big films. We plan to buy at least one film of this calibre peryear."

Wild Bunch took a majority stake in Pan-Europeenne inSeptember last year.