Sundance: Neon Buys ‘Three Identical Strangers’
VARIETY
By Brent Lang
Neon has landed North American rights to Tim Wardle’s “Three Identical Strangers” following its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival.
The newly launched indie studio bought the film from CNN Films, which will retain U.S. broadcast rights. Neon has been quite active at this year’s Sundance. It partnered with AGBO, the Russo Brothers’ production company, to pick up “Assassination Nation” for north of $10 million. That was the biggest deal of the festival. It also purchased “Monsters and Men,” an acclaimed drama about a police shooting, and announced that it had sold a majority stake in itself to 30West.
“Three Identical Strangers” follows a trio of people who make the discovery at age 19 that they are identical triplets separated at birth.
The film is directed by Tim Wardle, of the U.K.-based RAW. RAW’s Becky Read and Grace Hughes-Hallett produced along with CNN Films in association with Channel 4.
The deal announced today was negotiated with Neon by Josh Braun of Submarine and Stacey Wolf, vice president of business affairs for CNN Worldwide, along with Matt Burke and Ben Braun of Submarine and Kelly MacLanahan, senior counsel at CNN Worldwide on behalf of CNN Films.
Neon was founded by veteran distributor Tom Quinn and Alamo Drafthouse’s Tim League. It previously released “Colossal” starring Anne Hathaway and the Oscar-nominated “I, Tonya.”