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US deal for Mark Lamprell’s ‘Never Too Late’

‘Never Too Late’ (Photo credit: Bradley Patrick).

Blue Fox Entertainment has bought the US rights to Mark Lamprell’s Never Too Late and will release the comedy-drama on about 25 screens, followed by transactional VOD two weeks later.

That’s the distributor’s third Aussie acquisition following Stephan Elliott’s Swinging Safari and Russell Mulcahy’s In Like Flynn last year.

Starring Jack Thompson, James Cromwell, Dennis Waterman and Roy Billing as Vietnam veterans who plan to break out of their nursing home, the film scripted by Luke Preston will open the Young at Heart Senior Film Festival at Palace cinemas across Australia on February 19.

It will play each day for a couple of weeks in the festival then go out on a broader national release on April 23 via R&R Films.

Jacki Weaver plays Norma, the long-lost love of Cromwell’s character Bronson, formerly a US soldier whom she met when he was in Australia on R&R but was posted back to Vietnam before he could propose. Shane Jacobson is Bruce, the estranged son of Roy Billing’s Wendell.

Antony I. Ginnane, who produced with David Lightfoot, tells IF the US release will likely be in June, day-and-date with the roll-out in Canada via Pacific Northwest (which released Simon Baker’s Breath).

Blue Fox Entertainment’s release slate includes Sara Zandieh’s rom-com A Simple Wedding, which goes out in cinemas and on-demand this Friday, and Carl Hunter’s mystery/comedy Sometimes Always Never.

The international sales agent Myriad Pictures pre-sold Never Too Late to numerous markets including China, Hungary, Indonesia, South Africa and the Middle East and is looking to do more deals at the European Film Market in Berlin.

Meanwhile Lamprell’s third children’s book, Huberta’s Big Surprise, the tale of a rambunctious hippopotamus named Huberta who escapes from a zoo by pretending to cooperate with the authorities, co-written with his wife, Dr. Klay Lamprell, will be published later this year by Ashton Scholastic.

A US studio – name under wraps – has optioned the author’s last novel, The Lovers’ Guide to Rome, about three couples whose lives magically intersect on one extraordinary day in Rome, which has been published in 12 languages.