Angelina Jolie and Christoph Waltz to star in "Every Note Played" film adaptation for STX (EXCLUSIVE) https://t.co/ImQDXoVUZ6

— Variety (@Variety) October 9, 2020

They’re officially attached! Every Note Played starring Angelina Jolie and Christoph Waltzhttps://t.co/XGhqdl7X6f

— LisaGenova (@LisaGenova) October 9, 2020

Angelina Jolie and Christoph Waltz are in talks to star in “Every Note Played,” an adaptation of Lisa Genova’s contemporary romance novel. STX Films has acquired global rights to the movie.

Jolie will play Karina, the ex-wife of an accomplished concert pianist named Richard (portrayed by Waltz). He has suffered many losses, including the estrangement of his daughter, when he gets diagnosed with ALS in his hands. As the disease worsens and Richard can no longer play the piano or live on his own, Karina reluctantly steps in to be his caregiver.

Michael Sucsy, whose resume includes “13 Reasons Why” and “The Vow” starring Rachel McAdams and Channing Tatum, is set to direct. Richard Barton Lewis is producing “Every Note Played,” along with Gabrielle Jerou-Tabak and Monet Clayton of Southpaw Entertainment.

“We’re thrilled to be bringing this exceptional filmmaking team together for this emotional, powerful, and ultimately uplifting story,” said STXfilms Motion Picture Group chairman Adam Fogelson.

Up next for Jolie is “The Eternals,” Marvel’s superhero epic with Richard Madden, Gemma Chan and Kumail Nanjiani. The comic-book adventure about a super-powered alien race has been delayed multiple times due to the pandemic. Jolie will also appear alongside David Oyelowo in “Come Away,” a fantastical drama based on characters from “Alice in Wonderland” and Peter Pan.”

Waltz, who won Oscars for “Inglourious Basterds” and “Django Unchained,” is starring next in Wes Anderson’s “The French Dispatch” and will reprise his role as Blofeld in the James Bond sequel “No Time to Die.”

UTA and ICM represented the financing and arranged the distribution deal. Jolie is represented by WME and Waltz is represented by ICM.


From Amazon
From neuroscientist and New York Times bestselling author of Still Alice comes a powerful exploration of regret, forgiveness, freedom, and what it means to be alive.

An accomplished concert pianist, Richard received standing ovations from audiences all over the world in awe of his rare combination of emotional resonance and flawless technique. Every finger of his hands was a finely calibrated instrument, dancing across the keys and striking each note with exacting precision. That was eight months ago.

Richard now has ALS, and his entire right arm is paralyzed. His fingers are impotent, still, devoid of possibility. The loss of his hand feels like a death, a loss of true love, a divorce—his divorce.

He knows his left arm will go next.

Three years ago, Karina removed their framed wedding picture from the living room wall and hung a mirror there instead. But she still hasn’t moved on. Karina is paralyzed by excuses and fear, stuck in an unfulfilling life as a piano teacher, afraid to pursue the path she abandoned as a young woman, blaming Richard and their failed marriage for all of it.

When Richard becomes increasingly paralyzed and is no longer able to live on his own, Karina becomes his reluctant caretaker. As Richard’s muscles, voice, and breath fade, both he and Karina try to reconcile their past before it’s too late.

Poignant and powerful, Every Note Played is a masterful exploration of redemption and what it means to find peace inside of forgiveness.

Relativity Media acquires #AngelinaJolie, #DavidOyelowo fantasy adventure ‘Come Away’ (exclusive) https://t.co/X3CwSeTB9C pic.twitter.com/eQ9B6Rf5B3

— The Hollywood Reporter (@THR) October 9, 2020

Come Away is the first commercial release for the new Relativity Media. 

Why choose the Angelina Jolie and David Oyelowo-starrer as your first title brought to market?

We first looked at Come Away at Sundance. It plays right into one of our big differentiators at Relativity, as a company. We focus on people, we focus on principles and we focus on our partners. And with that we attempt to solve complicated problems with creative solutions. And with Come Away, we have great relationships and they had some needs that were a little bit complicated and we were able to be flexible -- on top of really liking the film.

Words like "complicated" and "being flexible" suggests you were looking for a wider theatrical release initially for Come Away, but the pandemic led you to a hybrid film launch, with a day and date indie theatrical and premium $19.99 VOD launch. How did that release strategy evolve?

We recognize that the world is changing. It's always changing, we're just feeling it more today because the pace of change is so magnified by COVID and social distancing and things we can do and can't do. We had to be flexible. This takes us back to our core culture. We have our relationships, our principles and our spirit of partnership. And we solved a complicated problem by getting this into the world on as many screens as we could. We can't predict as normally as we could how many people will show up at theaters. There just isn't enough data. But we have a terrific set of partners for the premium VOD release and we're going to have as successful campaign with this film had we been theatrical.

The simultaneous theatrical-PVOD release for Come Away means your exhibition and online partners will share in the movie's revenues, so it's a win-win for all involved?

We have partners and constituents. In this case, it's our shareholders, it's our partners in the film, Come Away. And it's our distribution partners, whether they be exhibitors or online platforms. And we will make this available to as many theaters as we can. Theatrical releases are a big part of our business plan going forward. But given the world we're in, there's a lot of uncertainty around that. We want to make sure we've got good partners all round. We don't think we're harming anyone's economics. We think it's a win-win all round.

Come Away is a family-friendly film. And by going both theatrically and to online platforms, you're confident you'll get as broad an audience as possible beyond the local multiplex?

We think Come Away is a terrific family film. It's the origin story of Alice and Peter. And today there's not a lot that's new that's geared towards families. We love the talent in the film. And we want to make it as accessible as we could to everyone. Regardless of whether someone wants to sit in a theater, or not, we wanted to make it accessible and everybody will have their own feelings about that.

Part of rebuilding Relativity Media was monetizing its content library. Tell us about that revenue-generating effort.

We haven't just put our library on sale. When we made the Relativity acquisition, one of the key assets of the company was the film library. It has 40-plus titles, and we're up to around 100 now as we've acquired another 30 titles in the last couple months to represent. We're not just walking in and saying will you buy some of this, please. It's working closely with the buyers and the programmers to make sure that we have product that they need and product that they want, and we're in constant conversation to ensure we're relevant to them.

A big question for the industry is whether streaming giants can continue releasing content, given the production disruption caused by the global pandemic. How do you see Hollywood's content market shaping up into next year and beyond?

Like everybody in the industry, we're watching closely what the largest players are doing -- whether it's Comcast or Disney or Netflix or Hulu, which is some combination of the above. They're going to shape the future of the industry, and we want to make sure that we're not chasing the puck around the ice. We want to skate to where we believe the puck will be. Everybody in the industry is being very attentive and observant, and to some extent we're very analytical people. We don't have all the answers today, but we have great relationships across the board, and that positions us well to be terrific partners to everybody in the industry in five years.

Studio Financing News

Financiers target $1.2 bil for studio pics

 

Anton Capital, StormHarbour seek to co-finance; eyeing Sony, U

By Rachel Abrams

As Relativity Media's billion-dollar co-financing deals at Sony and Universal draw to a close, finance groups Anton Capital Entertainment and StormHarbour are in the early stages of assembling a fund to back studio films. Their target: $1.2 billion to shop to the majors, with the most serious eye toward Sony and U.
Sources with direct knowledge of the potential fund caution that discussions are very preliminary: Anton and StormHarbour are in the fund-raising process, and neither Sony or Universal is in negotiations. Sony, Anton and Universal declined to comment; StormHarbour did not return emails.
Anton and StormHarbour made headlines at the end of last year by backing a $200 million fund with pan-European film group Studiocanal, coin that funded several pics including "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" and will contribute to the Coen brothers' "Inside Llewyn Davis."
For the past few years, most majors have opened their portfolios to potential partners, as pressure from corporate parents has pushed the studios to lessen their risk on big-budget fare. With the Relativity-arranged Beverly I and Beverly II vehicles either done or almost finished financing films at Sony and Universal, both studios have actively discussed bringing in new money.
And while fund talk may be early, many observers say that Anton and StormHarbour are closer than other groups that have come and gone through studio doors in recent months. Many investors have taken meetings, but few have materialized the cash to back up a big-budget partnership.
Chinese funds, for example, have made more headlines than movies in the past year. While Hollywood is aggressively looking to break into the mainland marketplace, few high-profile announcements have yielded tangible partnerships or films, especially at the major or mini-major level.
And while investors from all over the globe court Hollywood on a regular basis, co-financing deals at the studios look a lot different than they did a few years ago.
Lawsuits, the credit crunch and slipping home video numbers have made expensive slate arrangements less palatable. Instead of half-billion-dollar pacts to blindly fund dozens of pictures, many investors have put together smaller pacts with studios for select films.
In August, equity fund Hemisphere partnered with Sony for three of the studio's tentpoles (one of which was co-financed by Paramount as well), while David Elllison's Skydance Productions pacted with Paramount in 2009 for select big-ticket tenptoles.
That would make a $1.2 billion co-financing fund even more interesting.
Beverly II, which Relativity arranged at U in 2008 with backing from hedge fund Elliott Management, will fund films greenlit through the end of 2012, although the overall deal expires in 2014.
Under terms of the arrangement, Elliott funds about half the budgets of 75% of U's films each year. And while U had some home runs in 2011, like "Fast Five" and "Bridesmaids," Elliott smarted from a number of disappointments, including "Cowboys & Aliens." Beverly II also didn't participate in "Fast Five," which grossed more than $600 million worldwide.
Relativity arranged Beverly I at Sony in 2007. Funded more than 17 films, including hits like "Salt," "The Social Network" and "Grown Ups," through that arrangement, although the package also included misfires like "Did You Hear About the Morgans?"

Contact Rachel Abrams at Rachel.Abrams@variety.com

Sony Film Fund deal lawsuit

An interesting read into the intricacies of film financing.


Jeff Sneider @TheInSneider

"Sony no longer has to share the upside on potentially lucrative sequels to films such as GROWN UPS, PAUL BLART: MALL COP & SALT w/ Beverly"

The Full Complaint via Deadline

Company Town

The business behind the show

Relativity, Fortress sued by investor in Sony slate deal

February 8, 2012 |  5:26 pm

A film company that invested in a Sony Pictures co-financing fund arranged by Relativity Media is suing both Relativity and Wall Street giant Fortress Investment Group for fraud and breach of contract. The suit, filed Wednesday in Los Angeles Superior Court by Aramid Entertainment Fund, claims the Sony fund, which provided more than $500 million in capital to co-finance movies since 2008, was shut down late last year in a manner that benefited both Fortress and Relativity but deprived Aramid of at least $44 million.
Aramid claims to have invested $22 million in the film-finance fund set up by Relativity, for which financing was arranged by Citi. The so-called "Beverly slate deal" allowed Relativity to choose from among most of Sony's productions to co-finance up to 45 movies over a five-year period. Films it has co-financed included the Adam Sandler comedy "Grown Ups" and the Kevin James comedy "Paul Blart: Mall Cop."
According to the suit, Fortress, an investment firm with more than $43 billion under management, was given access to Aramid's private financial information, including details of the Beverly slate arrangement, in order to consider buying some of the film company's assets. The two firms did not end up making a deal, but Aramid alleges that Fortress improperly used that information to later buy into the Beverly deal.
Late last year, the lawsuit states, Fortress arranged to buy out Citi's interest in the Beverly slate, which was worth $226.7 million, for just $113.5 million, as the bank wanted to exit the movie deal. At the same time, Fortress is alleged to have convinced Sony Pictures to end the deal, which was supposed to allow Beverly to keep funding movies through 2013, in December 2011.
To end the deal early, Sony allegedly paid Beverly no more than $214 million, which the lawsuit claimed saved the studio up to $222 million in payments that would eventually be owed on the co-financed movies.
The arrangement allowed Fortress to make a gross profit of approximately $96.1 million, the suit claims.
In order to convince Relativity, which earned a producer fee of $1 million plus 2% of gross receipts for each co-financed movie, Fortress paid it $14.5 million late last year, the lawsuit claims. While that's allegedly $15 million to $30 million less than Relativity would have ultimately made under the deal, the independent studio, led by outspoken Chief Executive Ryan Kavanaugh, was under financial strain last year. Following several box-office disappointments, its relationship with former backer Elliott Management ended and it took out a loan from Colbeck Capital to continue operations.The lawsuit claims that Relativity had reached "functional insolvency [which] made Kavanaugh and Relativity particularly receptive to overtures from Fortress."
The lawsuit claims that Aramid was cut out and received no return on its original $22-million investment, which would have been worth at least $44 million if the Beverly fund had continued making movies. The suit claims that Relativity represented to Aramid throughout the fall that Beverly would co-finance several upcoming Sony films, including "21 Jump Street" and a new Adam Sandler comedy, "I Hate You Dad." Instead, Relativity was allegedly working with Fortress and Sony to end the Beverly deal early.
A spokesman for Fortress did not respond to a request for comment. Spokesmen for Relativity and Sony declined to comment.
Aramid was previously involved in litigation related to film investments made by financier David Bergstein and construction magnate Ron Tutor.