‘Storm Boy’
Good Deed Entertainment has acquired the North American rights to Ambience Entertainment’s Storm Boy.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, who broke the news, the distributor plans to release it during the American springtime, with the deal brokered by Kathy Morgan International.
In Australia, Sony Pictures Releasing will launch the film during the summer school holidays on January 17.
Studiocanal previously held the rights to the film locally, but Sony swooped on it after the deal did not pan out.
Shot in South Australia, Storm Boy is based on the classic novel by Colin Thiele, and is directed by Shawn Seet, produced by Matthew Street and Michael Boughen, and written by Justin Monjo. Leading the cast are Jai Courtney (Suicide Squad, Divergent), newcomer Finn Little and Geoffrey Rush.
Rush plays Mike ‘Storm Boy’ Kingsley, a retired businessman who starts to see things which at first he can’t explain. When his grand-daughter (Morgana Davies) rebels against her father, he is forced to re-evaluate his life and tries to prevent her from going down a similar path to one he took years before.
He recounts to her the story of him as a boy (Little) when he lived a lonely life with his father, Hideaway Tom (Courtney), on an isolated coastline and how a bond with an orphaned pelican, Mr. Percival, changed his life.
It also stars Trevor Jamieson as Fingerbone Bill, with a cameo from David Gulpilil as Fingerbone Bill’s father. Gulpilil played Jamieson’s character in the seminal 1976 film by Henri Safran, which also starred Greg Rowe and Peter Cummins.
Storm Boy received investment from Screen Australia, the South Australian Film Corporation, Piccadilly Pictures, Aurora Global Media Capita and Salt Media and Entertainment.
Rush’s defamation case against newspaper The Daily Telegraph, who published articles alleging he engaged in ‘inappropriate behaviour’ during a Sydney Theatre Company production of ‘King Lear’, is expected to be decided early next year.