Santa Monica-based sales agency Lightning Entertainment has added Ryan Little's sports drama Forever Strong to its Cannes slate.

Sean Faris stars as a brash rugby talent who winds up in detention centre following a DUI and joins a rival team under the guidance of a counsellor. Sean Astin and Neal McDonough also star.

David Pliler wrote the screenplay and Little produced with Adam Abel. Crane Movie Company holds domestic rights and will release in the US this autumn.

'We were immediately drawn into the gritty, rough and tumble true story involving the most storied rugby club in the US and a personal struggle to overcome adversity through the sport,' Lightning co-president Richard Guardian said.

Guardian, co-president Rich Goldberg, Joe Dickstein and Lightning corporate counsel Megan Holstein negotiated the deal with executive producer Brad Pelo, consultant Anne Marie Gillen and attorney Schuyler Moore on behalf of production company Picture Rock Entertainment.

Lightning's line-up for the Croisette includes Jada Pinket Smith's feature directorial debut The Human Contract, the coming-of-age comedy and Berlinale hit Hey Hey, It's Esther Blueburger, psychological thriller Anamorph starring Willem Dafoe, and the drama Black Irish.