By MCN Editor editor@moviecitynews.com

SONY PICTURES CLASSICS ACQUIRES “BARNEY’S VERSION” BASED ON MORDECAI RICHLER’S ACCLAIMED NOVEL

Posted Wednesday, September 8th, 2010 - Comments Off on SONY PICTURES CLASSICS ACQUIRES “BARNEY’S VERSION” BASED ON MORDECAI RICHLER’S ACCLAIMED NOVEL
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NEW YORK, NY (September 8, 2010) – Sony Pictures Classics announced today that they have acquired all US rights to BARNEY’S VERSION from producer Robert Lantos (EASTERN PROMISES, BEING JULIA, SUNSHINE). BARNEY’S VERSION is directed by Richard J. Lewis and based upon Mordecai Richler’s prize-winning comic novel. The film is In Competition at the Venice Film Festival and will be featured as a Gala Presentation at this year’s Toronto Film Festival.

BARNEY’S VERSION stars Academy Academy Award ® nominees Paul Giamatti and Minnie Driver, Award ® winner Dustin Hoffman, Rosamund Pike, Rachelle Lefevre and Scott Speedman. In the film, Barney Panofsky (Giamatti) is a seemingly ordinary man who lives an extraordinary life. Barney’s candid confessional spans three decades and two continents, and includes three wives, one outrageous father and a dangerously dissolute best friend.

“Very rarely does a major novel come to life so completely and so richly on the screen as it does here with BARNEY’S VERSION. Featuring wonderful performances by Paul Giamatti, Dustin Hoffman, Rosamund Pike, and Minnie Driver, producer Robert Lantos more than fulfills his multi year dream of filming Mordecai Richler’s masterpiece. We look forward to presenting the film to the American audience,” says Sony Pictures Classics.

“Several years before starting production on BARNEY’S VERSION, I approached Michael Barker and Tom Bernard. I told them about my relationship with Mordecai Richler and about how important this project was for me and that I would not trust anyone other than Sony Classics to distribute it in America. I was determined to make BARNEY’S VERSION the beneficiary of their skill and experience. I am now delighted to place my film in their talented hands,” said producer Robert Lantos.

ABOUT SONY PICTURES CLASSICS

Michael Barker and Tom Bernard serve as co-presidents of Sony Pictures Classics—an autonomous division of Sony Pictures Entertainment they founded with Marcie Bloom in January 1992, which distributes, produces, and acquires independent films from around the world.

Barker and Bernard have released prestigious films that have won 25 Academy Awards® (22 of those at Sony Pictures Classics) and have garnered over 100 Academy Award® nominations (85 at Sony Pictures Classics) including Best Picture nominations for AN EDUCATION, CAPOTE, HOWARDS END, AND CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON.

ABOUT SONY PICTURES ENTERTAINMENT

Sony Pictures Entertainment (SPE) is a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America (SCA), a subsidiary of Tokyo-based Sony Corporation. SPE’s global operations encompass motion picture production and distribution; television production and distribution; digital content creation and distribution; worldwide channel investments; home entertainment acquisition and distribution; operation of studio facilities; development of new entertainment products, services, and technologies; and distribution of filmed entertainment in more than 100 countries. Sony Pictures Entertainment can be found at http://www.sonypictures.com.

ABOUT SERENDIPITY POINT FILMS

Robert Lantos’ Serendipity Point Films is a boutique motion picture production company. BARNEY’S VERSION is the 36th film of Robert Lantos’ distinguished producing career. His films have been nominated for Academy Awards, Golden Globes and BAFTA’s. They have won prizes at most of the world’s major film festivals including The Grand Prix and The International Critics Prize in Cannes, The Silver Bear in Berlin and the Best Actor Prize in Rome. In Canada, his films have won the Genie Award for Best Picture four times. His recent credits include EASTERN PROMISES, BEING JULIA, FUGITIVE PIECES, SUNSHINE, EXISTENZ and THE SWEET HEREAFTER. www.serendipitypoint.com

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Posted in Festivals, Movie City News, Press Releases, TIFF Curated Headlines, Toronto Film Festival | Comments Off on SONY PICTURES CLASSICS ACQUIRES “BARNEY’S VERSION” BASED ON MORDECAI RICHLER’S ACCLAIMED NOVEL

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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon