STEVE COOGAN - FOCUS FEATURES PAYS $10 MILLION FOR $9-MILLION MOVIE

FOCUS FEATURES PAYS $10 MILLION FOR $9-MILLION MOVIE

Focus Features has shelled out $10 million at the Sundance Film Festival for the comedy Hamlet 2, starring Steve Coogan, about a high-school drama coach who attempts to save the school's theater department with a sequel to the Shakespeare play. The film reportedly cost $9 million to produce. Reports said that the deal represented one of the biggest sales in the history of the festival and that the figure was clearly the most paid for any film at this year's edition. Today's (Wednesday) Wall Street Journal said that an all-night bidding war broke out following enthusiastic audience reaction at the film's screening. Focus CEO James Schamus told the newspaper that ordinarily his company likes to make its own films and has not bought a film at Sundance in three years. However, he said, "When our senior team walked out of that screening, every single one of them believed that it was a film that we needed to have."


23/01/2008