The Weinstein Company (TWC) has sold a five-picture package to the UK's Entertainment Film Distributors, marking the first time that Nigel and Trevor Green have done business with Harvey and Bob Weinstein.


The move follows the closure of former Entertainment supplier New Line International. The package contains Stephen Daldry's drama The Reader starring Ralph Fiennes and Kate Winslet that has been tentatively set for a UK release on January 2 2009, as well as Rob Marshall's all-star musical Nine, comedy Zack And Miri Make A Porno, the upcoming Piranha 3-D and the Harrison Ford/Sean Penn drama Crossing Over.

Meanwhile the Weinsteins' international sales chief David Glasser said he was close to selling out Nine and had offers on the table from buyers in the last two major territories of Germany and Japan.

Glasser and his team are at AFM to show its foreign distribution partners up to ten minutes of footage this week as the film enters its fourth week of production in London.

Rights have also gone to Sony Pictures for Australia, New Zealand, Latin America and South Africa, SND for France, Rai for Italy, Wide Pictures for Spain and EnterMode for South Korea.

Further deals closed with Paradiso for Benelux, Kinoswiat for Poland, Discovery Film and Cinemania for the former Yugoslavia, AQS for the Czech Republic and Slovakia, Budapest Film for Hungary and Prorom for Romania and Bulgaria. TWC holds US rights.

Nine is based on Federico Fellini's 81/2 about a celebrated film director who balances a complex series of relationships with the women in his life. The A-list ensemble features Daniel Day-Lewis, Nicole Kidman, Penelope Cruz, Marion Cotillard, Fergie, Kate Hudson, Judi Dench and Sophia Loren.

TWC's AFM roster includes The Reader, six minutes of footage from Mikael Hafstrom's period thriller Shanghai with John Cusack and Gong Li, the Michael Cera comedy Youth In Revolt, Dimension's spoof Extreme Movie and Zack And Miri Make A Porno, which opened in second place in the US charts at the weekend.

Glasser is also talking to buyers about the remakes of Halloween and Hellraiser although he said he did not expect to commence sales here.

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