Toronto buyers gear up as busy weekend beckons

In the hours leading up to the evening world premiere of The Place Beyond The Pines, that film’s domestic co-representative Graham Taylor of WME Global was fielding interest from at least one US studio in pursuit of remake rights to Baltasar Kormakur’s survival story The Deep.

Meanwhile Submarine Entertainment boarded North American sales rights to Adrian Garcia Bogliano’s Vanguard entry Here Comes The Devil, The Cinema Guild acquired the US on Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Véréna Paravel’s documentary Leviathan and MPI Pictures took US rights to Claude Miller’s Therese Desqueyroux.

Buyers were poring over a plethora of acquisition titles that screened on Friday, led by Robert Pulcini and Shari Springer Berman’s Kristen Wiig comedy Imogene (pictured), Derek Cianfrance’s reunion with his Blue Valentine star Ryan Gosling on Pines, Noah Baumbach’s Frances Ha with Greta Gerwig, Scott McGehee and David Siegel’s What Maisie Knew starring Julianne Moore and Steve Coogan, Sally Potter’s Ginger And Rosa starring Elle Fanning and Sarah Polley’s documentary Stories We Tell.

Saturday’s top picks include Stuart Blumberg’s Thanks For Sharing with Gwyneth Paltrow and Mark Ruffalo, Ramaa Mosley’s The Brass Teapot with Juno Temple, wunderkind Joss Whedon’s Much Ado About Nothing, Nick Cassavetes’ Yellow and Nicolas Lopez’s Chilean earthquake horror film Aftershock, which Dimension Films is believed to be tracking.

It also emerged on Friday that Open Road is closing in on a domestic deal with Emmett/Furla Films for the thriller Fair Trade.

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