By MCN Editor editor@moviecitynews.com

FOX SEARCHLIGHT PICTURES ACQUIRES “THE SURROGATE”

Posted Wednesday, January 25th, 2012 - Comments Off on FOX SEARCHLIGHT PICTURES ACQUIRES “THE SURROGATE”
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For Immediate Release

Specialty Arm Acquires Worldwide Rights

PARK CITY, UT January 24, 2012 – Fox Searchlight Pictures Presidents Nancy Utley and Stephen Gilula announced today that the company has acquired worldwide rights to the inspirational true story THE SURROGATE. Directed and written by Ben Lewin, THE SURROGATE stars John Hawkes as Mark O’Brien, Helen Hunt as Cheryl Cohen Greene and William H. Macy as Father Brendan.  The film was produced by Judi Levine of Suchmuch Films and Stephen Nemeth of Rhino Films and is scheduled to be released in 2012.

“Ben Lewin has created a touching, uplifting look at one man’s desire to experience life to the fullest.  The brave and indelible performances by John Hawkes, Helen Hunt and William H. Macy left us floored,” said Gilula and Utley.

“We’re very happy to have found a home at Fox Searchlight for this film,” said director Ben Lewin.  “We have worked hard  to evoke the spirit of Mark O’Brien and his writing, and feel that the Searchlight team can help bring his unique and touching story to as wide of an audience as possible.”

“We look forward to working with Searchlight to broaden the conversation of topics that were once considered taboo and that represent what’s going on in society in a much more open way,” said Levine.

“Their work on films as diverse as ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ and ‘Little Miss Sunshine’ show their resources and passion can translate emotionally compelling material to a mainstream audience,” added producer Nemeth.

Based on the poignantly optimistic autobiographical writings of California–based journalist and poet Mark O’Brien, THE SURROGATE tells the story of a man confined to an iron lung who is determined – at age 38 – to lose his virginity.   With the help of his therapists and the guidance of his priest, he sets out to make his dream a reality.

The deal was brokered by Fox Searchlight’s Executive Vice President of Worldwide Acquisitions Tony Safford, Senior Vice President of Business Affairs Megan O’Brien and Vice President of Acquisitions & Co-Productions Ray Strache with CAA and attorney Craig Emanuel on behalf of the filmmakers.

Fox Searchlight Pictures is a specialty film company that both finances and acquires motion pictures.  It has its own marketing and distribution operations, and its films are distributed internationally by Twentieth Century Fox.  Fox Searchlight Pictures is a unit of Fox Filmed Entertainment, a unit of Fox Entertainment Group.

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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