EXCLUSIVE: In the first major deal of the 2021 Sundance Virtual Film Festival, Apple won global rights to CODA, for a number just north of $ 25 million. This sets a new record for Sundance acquisitions – above $ 22.5 million Palm springs received from Hulu / Neon last year. But this time, all the premiere viewing and the entire night auction was done far from the slopes of Park City. This amounts to a powerful battle between Apple and Amazon.
Writer-director Siân Heder’s drama for coming of age is about a high school boy who is the only hearing person in her deaf family and stays between the unit or seeks her own dreams. The film had its opening night in the American drama competition. Buyers loved it, and it became clear yesterday that its value to distributors in the stratosphere was on the rise, after apparently receiving feedback and response from buyers. Several offers were on the table and this brought the bid closer Palm springs territory. It was the Andy Samberg-Cristin Milioti movie that set the Sundance sales record with $ 22.5 million last year.
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The film (the acronym of the title is Child of Deaf Adults) focuses on Ruby (Emilia Jones), the only hearing person in her deaf family. When the family’s fishing industry is threatened, she becomes torn between the pursuit of her love of music and her fear of abandoning her parents. The photo is based on the award-winning French hit The belier family. Jones is a true discovery and the film is a crowd pleaser with many hearts and award potential. Heder captured the Boston fishing scene and the love of classic Motown and Joni Mitchell and Marvin Gaye, whose songs break down and connect you with the messages in them, and why they resonate with the characters moving through difficult circumstances. Most importantly, it creates a real path into the world of a mother, father and son born deaf, and when the film transports the audience to how these deaf characters experience the world without sound, and the clear singing talent of ‘ a cherished daughter they can not hear, the results are from which they build the best film candidates. Numerous buyers discussed the film with me yesterday and were saddened when the numbers shot past the money they could have spent as it became clear that it would be a world rights deal with a spreader.
Deal was led for Apple by Worldwide Video chiefs Zack Van Amburg and Jamie Erlicht, who overtook last year in the Sundance docu Boys State, which is currently in the Oscar race. It becomes the latest statement deal for Apple, which finally broke Cannes’ virtual record there for the Antoine Fuqua-Will Smith runaway slave drama Emancipation in a record pre-sale.
Says Deadline’s Pete Hammond in his review after CODELast night’s premiere: ‘It hits you right in the heart, not only as a moving story of what it means to be in a family, but also to become your own person and follow a dream.’
Eugenio Derbez, Marlee Matlin and Ferdia Walsh-Peelo also star. Fabrice Gianfermi ,, The Pathe film was produced by Philippe Rousselet, and Patrick Wachsberger co-produced the film with Jerome Seydoux, and production produced by Ardavan Safaee, Sarah Borch-Jacobsen, and co-produced by Hester Hargett-Aupetit, Ged Dickersin, Marie De Cenival, and Eric Jehelmann, Stephane Celerier and Valerie Garcia.
The auction was mediated by CAA Media Finance and ICM Partners and Pathe.
It’s all good for other titles at the festival, directed by Rebecca Hall Pass premiere today.