Exclusive Media has come aboard PASSENGERS to handle international sales rights for Brian Kirk’s (Game Of Thrones, Boardwalk Empire) sci-fi romance starring Keanu Reeves and Academy Award winning Reese Witherspoon, it was announced today by producers Stephen Hamel and Ben Browning and Exclusive Media’s President of International Sales and Distribution, Alex Walton.
Produced by Wayfare Entertainment and Company Films, PASSENGERS was developed by Stephen Hamel and Keanu Reeves at their production house Company Films. Hamel will produce the film with Wayfare’s CEO Ben Browning. Start Media’s Michael Maher and Lynwood Spinks will executive produce. Set for a January 2014 start date, Alex Walton will launch the international sales for the film at the upcoming Cannes Film Market. The project was acquired for the company by Tobin Armbrust, President of Worldwide Production & Acquisitions.
Written by Jon Spaihts (PROMETHEUS), the story revolves around a spacecraft transporting human cargo to a distant colony planet that malfunctions causing one passenger (Reeves) to prematurely thaw from a cryogenic slumber nearly a century before anyone else. Faced with the prospect of growing old and dying alone, he decides to wake up a second passenger, marking the beginning of what becomes a unique love story. EMMY and BAFTA nominated Brian Kirk has directed extensively for television and his credits include HBO’s award winning Game of Thrones, Boardwalk Empire and Luck, and the Emmy award-winning mini-series Great Expectations which received 7 BAFTA and 5 EMMY nominations. Kirk also directed the pilot for the BBC’s acclaimed Luther starring Idris Elba who won a Golden Globe for his performance.
“PASSENGERS has found the perfect home at Exclusive Media, one of the leading international sales companies. They produce and represent some of the very best in independent film projects and we could not be happier to have them as part of our team,” said Ben Browning. “This is a very special film – Reese Witherspoon and Keanu Reeves are two of the most versatile and talented actors working today and together they will be electric. Brian Kirk is one of the most sought after directors of the moment, having helmed some of the signature television shows in recent history. Brian is strong on performance, skilled with narrative, and confident in rich and original world creation. We are excited to have Exclusive Media helping bring this film to life,” he continued.I have loved this script since I first read it. It is a fresh and original concept with a wonderful love story at the core. Reese and Keanu are magnetic actors– put them together and you have a golden ticket. Audiences worldwide are going to love this film,” said Alex Walton.
In recent years Browning’s Wayfare Entertainment has financed and produced Universal’s SANCTUM along with James Cameron, Focus Features IT’S KIND OF A FUNNY STORY starring Zach Galifianakis and Emma Roberts, Neil Jordan’s ONDINE starring Colin Farrell and Sebastian Cordero’s upcoming EUROPA REPORT starring Sharlto Copley. Browning is also producing an adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s THE GRAVEYARD BOOK for Disney. Wayfare is a holding of Start Media, a privately held media company that also has interests in exhibition, publishing, and technology
After Jon Spaihts’ script for PASSENGERS was included on the 2007 Black List, he was commissioned by Scott Free Productions to write Ridley Scott’s PROMETHEUS which was released by Twentieth Century Fox. For New Regency, Spaihts wrote the screenplay to the alien invasion thriller THE DARKEST HOUR, based on a story by Leslie Bohem and M.T. Ahern and was released by Summit Entertainment in 2011.He is currently engaged in a two-picture deal at Jerry Bruckheimer Films to adapt Ashley Wood’s graphic novel World War set to be released in 2014.
Images: Getty
