‘Choke,’ ‘Henry Poole,’ ‘Hamlet 2’ get snapped up
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On the fifth day, the checkbooks came out.
After a very slow start for sales at the Sundance Film Festival, the buyers started purchasing movies, with a flurry of deals that closed early Tuesday morning.
After an all-night negotiating session, Fox Searchlight paid $5 million for most worldwide rights to “Choke,” writer-director Clark Gregg’s adaptation of the Chuck Palahniuk novel. The film, which screened for the first time Monday night, stars Sam Rockwell, Anjelica Huston and Kelly Macdonald.
Focus Features closed a $10-million deal for the comedy “Hamlet 2,” a late entry that was shown for the first time in Park City on Monday afternoon. Focus bought most of the worldwide rights to the film, which follows a high school teacher (David Arquette) who decides to motivate his students by penning a sequel to Shakespeare’s masterwork.
The domestic rights to “Henry Poole Is Here,” director Mark Pellington’s movie about a middle-aged man (Luke Wilson) coming to terms with his mortality, were sold to the new production and distribution company Overture Films for about $4.5 million. It screened for the first time Monday.
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