By MCN Editor editor@moviecitynews.com

FILMDISTRICT SCORES ‘PLAYING THE FIELD’

Posted Thursday, May 12th, 2011 - Comments Off on FILMDISTRICT SCORES ‘PLAYING THE FIELD’
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Gerard Butler & Jessica Biel Headline Soccer-Mom Rom Com; Star-Studded Cast Includes Uma Thurman, Judy Greer, Dennis Quaid and Catherine Zeta-Jones

NEW YORK, May 12, 2011 – FilmDistrict has acquired all US rights to PLAYING THE FIELD from Nu Image/Millennium Films. Directed by Gabriele Muccino (THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS) from a script by Robbie Fox (SO I MARRIED AN AXE MURDERER), PLAYING THE FIELD is in production by Gerard Butler and Alan Siegel’s Evil Twin Productions in association with Kevin Misher, Jonathan Mostow, Heidi Jo Markel and John Thompson. Nu Image / Millennium Films’ Danny Dimbort, Trevor Short & Avi Lerner are serving as Executive Producers.  Headlined by Butler and Jessica Biel, the A-list cast includes Judy Greer, Dennis Quaid, Uma Thurman and Catherine Zeta-Jones. FilmDistrict is planning to release the film in Spring 2012.

PLAYING THE FIELD kicks off with the homecoming of George (Gerard Butler), a retired soccer pro whose glory days are behind him. Burnt out on his playboy lifestyle and bankrupted by a string of bad investments, George moves back to Virginia to reconnect with his estranged ex-wife (Jessica Biel) and neglected son (Noah Lomax). Making up for lost time, George starts to coach the boys’ soccer team. But can he keep his eyes on the goal when the bleachers are stacked with sexy soccer moms and desperate housewives?

Says FilmDistrict CEO Peter Schlessel, “PLAYING THE FIELD is a fun PG-13 romantic comedy that in the very capable hands of Gabriele Muccino is sure to be a hit. The great comedic cast will definitely have fun with Robbie Fox’s terrific script.”

“We are very pleased to have closed this deal with Peter Schlessel and FilmDistrict for “PLAYING THE FIELD” and hope it will be the first of many to come.  I am confident they will do a great job bringing this picture to market”, says Avi Lerner, Co-Chairman of Nu Image/Millennium Films.

About FilmDistrict

FilmDistrict is a multi-faceted acquisitions, distribution, production and financing company focusing on wide release, commercial pictures. Founded in September by Graham King and Tim Headington’s GK Films, in partnership with Peter Schlessel, the company’s films include INSIDIOUS, April 1; SOUL SURFER, April 8; DON’T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK, Aug. 26; DRIVE, Sept. 16; THE RUM DIARY, Oct. 28; and LOCKOUT, Feb. 24, 2012. For more information, visit filmdistrict.com.

About Nu Image/Millennium Films

Nu Image, Inc./Millennium Films is a full-service production company and distributor, supplying markets worldwide.  Currently, they develop, finance, produce and distribute 15 to 18 films a year, with productions filming globally.

This August audiences worldwide will see the highly anticipated Conan the Barbarian, from Nu Image/Millennium Films.  Production on The Expendables 2 will commence soon, following the blockbuster The Expendables that has passed over $200 million worldwide (directed, written and starring Sylvester Stallone).  Currently in production in addition to Playing the Field, is Medallion with Nicolas Cage, Josh Lucas, Malin Ackerman, Danny Huston and directed by Simon West.

Founded in 1992 with partners Danny Dimbort, Trevor Short, Avi Lerner and Danny Lerner, Nu Image created Millennium Films in 1996 to address the market’s growing need for quality theatrical films and higher budget action features. Together, they have produced more than 300 films.

Nu Image is headquartered in Los Angeles, and owns full service studios and production facilities in Sofia, Bulgaria called Nu Boyana, and the recently completed Millennium Studios in Shreveport, Louisiana.

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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