Brandon Cronenberg’s Sci-Fi Thriller POSSESSOR Finds a Host

by Screenmancer Staff

 NEW YORK, NY (3/27/20): NEON has acquired U.S. rights to Brandon Cronenberg’s POSSESSOR, the sci-fi biotech spy flick starring Andrea Riseborough (OBLIVION, and BIRDMAN OR (THE UNEXPECTED VIRTUE OF IGNORANCE), Christopher Abbott (JAMES WHITE), Tuppence Middleton (THE IMITATION GAME), with Sean Bean (THE LORD OF THE RINGS, GOT franchises) and Jennifer Jason Leigh (THE HATEFUL EIGHT). Arclight Films is handling the worldwide rights and co-repped the US rights. “NEON is a hugely exciting distributor, and I’ve been eager to work with them for a while now. I’m thrilled they are taking on POSSESSOR in collaboration with Well Go USA, who made production of the film possible,” said Cronenberg, son of iconic thrill-master David Cronenberg.

POSSESSOR, which made its World Premiere at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival, received critical acclaim with critics describing the film as “a surreal fever dream” and “unnervingly good at getting under your skin.” In sum, the scenario follows corporate agent Tasya Vos (Riseborough) who works for a secretive organization that uses brain-implant technology to inhabit other people’s bodies – ultimately driving them to commit assassinations for high-paying clients. This is Cronenberg’s second feature film outing. ANTIVIRAL, his debut, premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and went on to win Best Canadian First Feature Film at the Toronto International Film Festival and Best New Director at the Sitges Film Festival, among other accolades.

This is a Canadian/UK co-production, produced by Niv Fichman, Kevin Krikst, and Fraser Ash for Rhombus Media and Andy Starke for Rook Films. Executive producers are: Arclight Films’ Gary Hamilton, Ryan Hamilton and Ying Ye; Steven Squillante and David U. Lee of Leeding Media; Noah Segal and Adrian Love of Elevation Pictures; Simon Williams, Daniel Negret, and Vaishali Mistry of Ingenious Media; Dave Bishop; Tony Roman; and Doris Pfardrescher from Well Go USA. POSSESSOR is an Ingenious Media presentation, produced with the participation of Telefilm Canada and Ontario Creates, in association with Arclight Films and Particular Crowd. Elevation Pictures will release the film in Canada.  Jeff Deutchman negotiated the deal for NEON with Doris Pfardrescher at Well Go USA, and CAA Media Finance on behalf of the filmmakers. POSSESSOR will be released by NEON, with plans to be announced at a later date.  Well Go USA will handle the home entertainment release.

This Is NEON… A little less than 3 years since inception, NEON has garnered 12 Oscar nominations and already grossed over $150M at the Box Office. It continues to push boundaries and take creative risks on bold cinema such as Bong Joon Ho’s Parasite, which made history winning four Academy Awards®, becoming the first non-English-language film to claim Best Picture. The film, which also unanimously won the Palme d’Or at Cannes, has amassed over $53M at the domestic box office and broke multiple records including highest per screen average of the year and highest per screen average for a foreign language film of all time. Other noteworthy NEON releases include: Double Oscar nominee Honeyland; Todd Douglas Miller’s Apollo 11, 2019’s highest grossing documentary with a worldwide gross of $16M; Tim Wardle’s Three Identical Strangers, winner of the Sundance Special Jury Award for Storytelling which surpassed $13M at the box office; and Craig Gillespie’s I, Tonya, which garnered multiple Academy Award® nominations, one win for Allison Janney and amassed over $30M in domestic box office. After their successful collaboration on I, Tonya in January 2018, 30WEST (Dan Friedkin’s and Micah Green’s strategic venture) partnered with NEON’s Tom Quinn (Founder & CEO) and Tim League (Co-Founder) to become majority investors in the company.

Take a look at POSSESSOR.

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