Screen Daily reports that Roadside Attractions has picked up RJ Cutler’s VOGUE documentary The September Issue, for a planned September release. Here’s our review of the film from Sundance. We’ve added that news, plus info on the sales of Push, Cold Souls and more to our deals chart.

The five-day post-festival grace period is up, so it’s time for us to put down our pencils and put a close to our coverage of the 2009 Sundance Film Festival. We had a smaller team on the ground this year so our coverage may not have been completely comprehensive, but hopefully quality stepped up where quantity slacked off. A full guide to our reviews, interviews, and assorted miscellany after the jump.

…Read more

Thursday was somewhat like Wednesday as far as Sundance deals go. Only one film was picked up, and IFC Films did the buying. This time, the patient distributor acquired U.S. rights to Armando Iannucci’s In the Loop, a British political comedy starring James Gandolfini.

There are only a few more days left in the festival, but sales may continue through Sunday (and likely beyond). So keep checking SpoutBlog’s Sundance deals chart for any further updates over the weekend.

Only one acquisition to report this morning: IFC Films’ purchase of U.S. rights to the Swedish Norwegian zombie Nazi flick Dead Snow. It’s typical for many buyers to head home after Wednesday, so yesterday’s single deal may be the last major pickup we hear about for awhile.

But there are a number of films still receiving buzz and interest, so remember to keep checking SpoutBlog’s Sundance Deals chart for any updates that may come in.

Following Monday’s drama involving Fox Searchlight’s bid for An Education, Sony Pictures Classics was able to bring the price down and pick up North American and select Latin American rights to the coming-of-age drama for a reported $3-4 million. It’s the distributor’s first acquisition during this year’s festival, having already bought some titles pre-fest. Also making its first buy of the year, Lionsgate acquired US and UK rights to James C. Strouse’s basketball comedy The Winning Season.

Check out our Sundance Deals chart for the full scoop on these two deals and the rest of the acquisitions as of this morning.

Fox Searchlight, the distributor that tends to get the most bang for its Sundance buck, has picked up worldwide rights to Max Mayer’s romantic film Adam with intent for a 2009 theatrical release. Other big deals of the past 24 hours include Sony Classics’ acquisition of North American rights to the blaxploitation tribute Black Dynamite and Magnolia’s pickup of worldwide rights to Lynn Shelton’s comedy Humpday, which will get a VOD release a month prior to its debut in theaters this summer.

Check out our Sundance Deals chart for the full scoop on these three deals and the rest of the acquisitions as of this morning.

• Aside from the Brooklyn’s Finest deal, there haven’t been any major acquisitions in Park City yet, even after a full weekend of significant premieres. The Hollywood Reporter headlines with “Sales stuck” but optimistically notes the following titles are expected to be picked up soon: Humpday; Amreeka; The Killing Room; Push: Based on the Novel by Sapphire.
• One reason for such a slow sales weekend may be that one of the only distributors with a lot of money to spend is IFC Films, the head of which told the New York Times, “We’re not going to get into a bidding war. That’s not our business.”
• Tech company B-Side Entertainment, which last year was a partner in the release of Super High Me, is now becoming a full-fledged distribution player. With $4.25 million in financing, B-Side aims to release 10 films in 2009, whether theatrically or via other outlets.
• 2008 Sundance doc Flow: For the Love of Water has been acquired by Sundance Channel, along with 25 other films including David Lynch’s Inland Empire and Eraserhead, to air on the cable station in 2009.
• Another 2008 selection, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, has also been picked up. Peace Arch will release the film this Spring.

The Sundance Film Festival had it’s first major deal go down Saturday night as young distributor Senator Entertainment (in a co-venture with Sony Pictures Worldwide) picked up North American rights to Antoine Fuqua’s admittedly unfinished Brooklyn’s Finest for a price tag of less than $5 million (with a marketing commitment of $10 million).

Other acquisitions made just before and since the festival began include the following:

• Visit Films purchased worldwide rights to Ry Russo-Young’s You Won’t Miss Me, N.C. Heikin’s Korean War documentary Kimjongilia and David Russo’s comedy The Immaculate Conception of Little Dizzle.
• PBS’ P.O.V. series picked up television rights to two documentaries: William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe and El General.
• Another doc, Brothers at War, was bought by Samuel Goldwyn Films for a U.S. theatrical release.
• Danish documentary Burma VJ went to HBO for a theatrical run at NYC’s Film Forum and cable broadcast.
• E1 Films Canada picked up Canadian rights to Sophie Barthes’ Cold Souls.
• Sony Classics finally confirmed that it had indeed bought North American rights to Carlos Cuaron’s Rudo y Cursi.

All these pickups have been added to SpoutBlog’s Sundance Deals chart, which will continue to be updated throughout the festival. So remember to keep checking back and bookmark the post if you haven’t yet.

Here’s our running tally of each of the distribution deals announced just before, throughout the course of, and just after the 2009 Sundance Film Festival. We will update this post whenever new information comes in, so bookmark it and keep checking back for the newest latest.

Here’s a catalog of the coverage we produced during the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. We’ll add any future posts that deal with the festival in the coming days to this list.

REVIEWS

Baghead

Stranded

Momma’s Man

Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden?

Roman Polanski: Wanted & Desired

Made in America

A Complete History of My Sexual Failures

Ballast

Bigger, Stronger, Faster

Timecrimes

Eat, For This Is My Body

Trouble the Water

INTERVIEWS

Azazel Jacobs (Momma’s Man)

Nacho Vigalondo (Timecrimes)

Greta Gerwig (Baghead)

Jay Duplass (Baghead)

The Zellner Brothers (Goliath)

Tia Lessin (Trouble the Water)

Chris Bell (Bigger, Stronger, Faster)

Mylika Davis and Jerome Anthony Hawkins (A Good Day to be Black and Sexy)

The Linguists

Yung Chang (Up the Yangtze)

Ballast

Diary of the Dead

FilmCouch from Sundance

…Read more

Sundance doesn’t technically end until Sunday, but I’m already half-way home from Park City, where the general sense last night seemed to be that the bulk of the buyers weren’t exactly in a hurry to close deals before closing night. But as our deal chart shows, Sony Classics managed to sneak in two quick, six-figure buys at the end of the week, first nabbing the contentious Frozen River, then closing the pick up of the Duplass Brothers’ mumble-horror comedy Baghead late last night. Check out the full chart here.

Two additions to the deal chart report: after days of negotiating with several companies, Nanette Burstein has finally sold American Teen to Paramount Vantage. Also, Isaac Julien’s Derek has been acquired for US distribution and worldwide sales by Andrew Hurwitz’ Film Sales Company. See the full Sundance 2008 deals chart here.

Wow. About three and a half hours ago, I posted this story about how there hadn’t been any deals in two days. Then I went to a screening. By the time I came back, three features had landed multi-million dollar deals. The hugest of these is the $10 million Focus paid for the Steve Coogan comedy Hamlet 2. That’s Little Miss Sunshine money. That’s insane. Also off the maket: Mark Pellington’s Henry Poole is Here, which went to Overture for $3.5 mil, and Choke, which sold to Searchlight for $5 million. All of the above have been added to our comprehensive Sundance deal chart.

A note about the chart itself: yesterday I removed the $$$ column, as up until that point there had been minimal information released about how much distributors had actually paid. But all of today’s deals have had dollar values clearly attached–– I guess nobody spends $10 million on ANYTHING without making sure that someone knows about it–so from here on, I’ll append dollar values if applicable in the Rights column.

We made the most recent entry to our Sundance deal chart late Sunday, and since then, there just hasn’t been anything firm to report. In fact, from Sunday to Tuesday, I think there have been more “why aren’t movies selling” think pieces in places like Variety and the New York Times than their have been actual deals throughout the course of the festival. Of course, nobody really knows what the problem is, but everyone’s willing to hazard a guess.

In her writeup for Variety proper, Anne Thompson said buyers are holding out for “that magic combo of an easy-to-market movie that will earn great reviews”; on her blog, she said buyers “are looking for love. And some may not have found it yet.” David M. Halbfinger’s NYT piece suggests that buyers are holding out in the hopes that prices wold drop. He also manages to find a way to blame bloggers for the sluggishness, with a quote from Sony’s Tom Bernard:

…Read more