Archstone Entertainment will take a trio of Bronte Pictures projects to this week’s European Film Market (EFM) in Berlin as part of a sales deal with the production house.
Nick Pollet’s adult stop-motion animation comedy The Greatest Surf Movie In The Universe, Blair Moore’s action-filled Kane, and Matthew Holmes’ thriller The Cost – all three of which completed post-production at The Post Lounge – have been added to Archstone’s catalogue ahead of the market.
Bronte Pictures CEO Blake Northfield told IF he was excited by the prospect of completing three films at the same time and selling them to one sales agent.
“Usually, you hear of three-picture deals where [the sales agent] has come on at the start and has signed you up for the next three years,” he said.
“But the acquisition of three films at once is a pretty big deal.”
Featuring voice contributions from Luke Hemsworth, Kelly Slater, and Mick Fanning, The Greatest Surf Movie in the Universe, picks up 10 years since a deadly virus has wiped out a lot of the global population. In the rush to save humanity, Dr John Fig (Vaughan Blakey) fast-tracks an experimental vaccine that becomes mandatory in every country around the world. The vaccine works, however, the injection instantly erases the ability to surf and any memory of surfing altogether.
Abstract makes way for action in Kane, which stars Clayton Watson as a notorious hitman with multiple personalities who works for an old-school crime boss that is at war with a gangster. When his most dangerous personality, Kane, emerges the following 24 hours are potentially deadly. Produced by Shaun Barry along with Northfield, the film also stars Nathan Phillips, Jake Ryan, Tammin Sursok, Martin Dingle Wall, Jeremy Lindsay Taylor and Holly Brisley.
Watson also has a supporting role in The Cost, a tale of two men (Jordan Fraser-Trumble and Damon Hunter) who kidnap the man who murdered their wife and sister, played by Nicole Pastor, 15 years ago with the intention of dispensing their own form of justice. Filmed in Melbourne at the beginning of 2021, the film was produced by Bronte Pictures alongside Holmes’ Two Tone Pictures and Russell Cunningham of RLC Motion Picture Entertainment.
The deal was negotiated by Archstone president of worldwide sales and development Jack Sheehan, who said securing the three-picture deal covering the “diverse yet equally riveting and fun films” was a “dream come true”.
“Blake has been not only a good friend at the markets for years, but a creative, risk-taking filmmaker and savvy entrepreneur I’ve been dying to partner with,” he said.
The three films form part of a slate that also includes Antonis Tsonis’ Athens-shot foreign language drama Brando With A Glass Eye, and Holmes’ period shark thriller Fear Below.