Screen has learned BeIN Media Group will distribute Alexander Payne’s new comedy drama The Holdovers – the biggest off-festival sales title here at TIFF – in the Middle East and Turkey.
Focus Features has acquired the 1970-set drama across the rest of the world following a deal reportedly in the $30m range struck with Miramax CEO Bill Block and CAA Media Finance.
Miramax produced and financed the film and shot in Massachusetts, opting to make it before shopping to distributors. Chairman Nasser Al-Khelaifi’s Qatar-based BeIN Media Group will distribute in all media in the aforementioned territories and owns a 51% majority stake in Miramax. ViacomCBS owns the 49% balance.
1970-set The Holdovers reunites Payne with his Sideways star Paul Giamatti and follows an unpopular New England prep schoolteacher forced to spend Christmas holidays with a stranded, unruly student and a Black head cook whose son has died in the Vietnam War.
Miramax and CAA Media Finance screened the film to buyers in Toronto on Sunday. Focus is expected to release in 2023.
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