Freestyle Releasing, Freestyle Digital Media (FDM) and Dominion Pictures announced today that they have acquired theatrical and all DVD/VOD rights to MR. PIP, a film from Andrew Adamson (CHRONICLES OF NARNIA, SHREK) based on the best-selling novel by Lloyd Jones. The drama brings "House MD" superstar Hugh Laurie to the big screen, alongside up-and-coming sensation Xzannjah Matsi. Executive produced by Tim Coddington, James Dean, Daniel Revers and Timothy White, the film will debut in limited theaters and on all digital platforms on November 7, 2014.
The winner of New Zealand Film & TV Awards for Best Actor (Laurie) and Best Actress (Xzannjah), the film also features Kerry Fox, Eka Darville, Florence Korokoro, Healesville Joel and Tapiwa Soropa. It was produced by Adamson, Robin Scholes, Leslie Urdang and Dean Vanech.
Mr. Watts (Laurie) is the last Englishman remaining in a tropical village in Bougainville during its civil war in the 1990s. He begins to teach the local children by reading them "Great Expectations," by Charles Dickens, while Matilda (Matsi) is an imaginative young girl, who is transported into the story of the novel, believing that Dickens' character Pip is her friend. Matilda's "Pip" world is an extraordinary fusion of Dickens' Victorian London with the environment and people she knows on the island. This wildly imaginative hybrid place - visually stimulating and utterly compelling - is set alongside the film's unflinching portrayal of the horrors of war. Matilda's
PASSION for storytelling brings terror to the village when Pip's identity is misunderstood by the invading army. Ultimately, her courage and imagination must sustain her if she is to survive.
The film came to Freestyle Digital Media through UTA and was negotiated by Chris Charalambous, Head of Acquisitions & Sales for Freestyle Digital Media with Hamish Berry (producer's attorney) of Bruns Brennan & Berry PLLC.
"Andrew Adamson paints a beautiful picture of
DIVERGENT worlds," said Mark Borde, President of Freestyle Releasing, "from the
INNOCENCE of young adulthood to the brutal reality of wars, the film's range is incredible."
Recent Freestyle titles include the box office hit GOD'S NOT DEAD, TIGER EYES, the first big screen adaptation of a Judy Blume novel starring Willa Holland, and the SXSW festival favorite FUNERAL KINGS from the McManus Brothers and the upcoming
THE IDENTICAL starring Ashley Judd and Ray Liotta.
