Limelight at TIFF with 3 Acquisition Titles and Coachella comedy

Most unbiased producer/financiers could be glad to have one sizzling title up on the market in Toronto. Limelight arrives this week with three: the Jane Fonda/Lily Tomlin-led comedy-drama “Shifting On,” plus a pair of distinctive coming-of-age dramas, “Aristotle and Dante Uncover the Secrets and techniques of the Universe” and “Wildflower.”  

Now Limelight is growing the script for a comedy tentatively titled “Coachella,” written by Andy Siara (“Palm Springs”) and Joey Siara. The function facilities on teenagers who inform their dad and mom they’re occurring a church journey, however sneak off to the famed desert music competition as an alternative. The Siara brothers are loosely drawing on their experiences enjoying the fest with their indie rock band, The Henry Clay Individuals. (Andy, creator of Peacock’s “The Resort” and author of an upcoming Apple Studios sci-fi comedy starring Andy Samberg, is repped by UTA, LBI Leisure and Morris Yorn. Joey is repped by UTA and three Arts Leisure.)

By any measure, Limelight companions Dylan Sellers, Chris Parker and Alex Dong are on a roll. Their comedy “Palm Springs” bought to Neon and Hulu for round $22 million in 2020, a record-breaking Sundance deal on the time. Their 2021 TIFF premiere “The Starling,” a Melissa McCarthy-led dramedy, bought to Netflix for greater than $20 million based mostly on a script and pictures. IFC Movies and AMC+ picked up their comedian thriller “Spin Me Spherical” and gave it a theatrical/streaming/VOD premiere in August. They nabbed Spanish-language rights to the hit South Korean comedy “Miss Granny,” and on Sept. 23, Pantelion/Lionsgate will theatrically launch “Cuando Sea Joven,” the remake they produced with CJ ENM, 3pas Studios, the Elevate and Boies Schiller Leisure.

Even the draw back of their packed TIFF schedule has an upside. On Sept. 12, after purchaser screenings and the “Aristotle” premiere, Sellers and Parker will fly again to Los Angeles to attend the Emmys, the place their Hulu miniseries “Pam & Tommy” obtained 10 nominations. Regardless of lacking that afternoon’s “Wildflower” premiere, they’ll be in good firm: the movie’s co-stars Jean Good (“Hacks”) and Alexandra Daddario (“The White Lotus”) can be up for Emmys as properly.

Limelight’s run of TIFF world premieres begins Sept. 9 with the Discovery part bow of first-time function director Aitch Alberto’s “Aristotle,”  the story of two Mexican American teenagers in late Nineteen Eighties Texas, based mostly on the bestselling younger grownup novel by Benjamin Alire Sáenz. UTA is repping gross sales on the undertaking Limelight produced with Lin-Manuel Miranda, Large Swing Prods. and 3pas Studios.

Subsequent up is first-time narrative function director Matt Smukler’s Up to date World Cinema entry “Wildflower,” the portrait of a younger lady (Kiernan Shipka) caring for her intellectually disabled mum or dad. CAA, WME and Sierra/Affinity are repping the movie, produced alongside Leisure One, Looking Lane Movies and Morning Moon, based mostly on Smuckler’s eponymous doc.

And on Sept. 13 is the Gala debut of author/director Paul Weitz’s “Shifting On,” which facilities on estranged associates (Fonda and Tomlin) who plot revenge towards the widower of their outdated pal. UTA is repping gross sales on the wild comedy-drama, produced with Depth Of Discipline and Boies Schiller Leisure.
Since he co-founded Limelight with Parker and Dong in 2018, Sellers says they’ve “tried to keep away from straight style motion pictures,” aiming for tasks alongside the traces of movies he developed as a Weinstein Co. exec. “We wish to make cool movies from author/administrators with one thing on their thoughts. If we do horror, we wish to do [something like] ‘Get Out.’” Additionally they wish to work with extra first-time function administrators like Alberto, Smukler and Max Barbakow (“Palm Springs”).

Limelight simply accomplished manufacturing on Robert Siegel’s true-crime miniseries “Welcome to Chippendales” (streaming on Hulu on Nov. 22) and Potsy Ponciroli’s all-star ensemble comedy “Windfall,” which they hope to premiere and promote at Sundance.

The corporate was named after Charles Chaplin’s 1952 drama “Limelight,” and Sellers says he hopes to observe within the path of that movie’s distributor, United Artists, by discovering “nice new writer-directors and giving them a house.”