By Ray Pride Pride@moviecitynews.com

ROADSIDE ATTRACTIONS TAKES U.S. RIGHTS TO FRED SCHEPISI’S ‘WORDS AND PICTURES’ STARRING CLIVE OWEN AND JULIETTE BINOCHE

Posted Sunday, September 15th, 2013 - Comments Off on ROADSIDE ATTRACTIONS TAKES U.S. RIGHTS TO FRED SCHEPISI’S ‘WORDS AND PICTURES’ STARRING CLIVE OWEN AND JULIETTE BINOCHE
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(LOS ANGELES, CA) September 15, 2013 – Following its acclaimed world premiere as a Gala Presentation at the Toronto International Film Festival, Roadside Attractions has acquired US rights to director Fred Schepisi’s adult romance, WORDS AND PICTURES, written by Gerald Di Pego and starring Oscar nominee Clive Owen (KILLER ELITE, BLOOD TIES) and Oscar winner Juliette Binoche (THE ENGLISH PATIENT, CHOCOLAT).

The film is produced by Latitude Productions’ Curtis Burch in association with Dallas-based Lascaux Films. Nancy Rae Stone serves as executive producer.

A writer whose talent has dried up (Owen) and an artist (Binoche), struggling to paint as her body betrays her, clash at the school where they teach, sparking both a flamboyant courtship and a school-wide war: which is more powerful, the Word or the Picture?

“Fred Schepisi’s charming film WORDS AND PICTURES features great performances by Clive Owen and Juliette Binoche — in an uplifting, crowd-pleasing film about teachers who change the lives of both their students and each other with their passions for learning, life and the arts,” said Roadside Attractions’ co-President Howard Cohen.

Producer Curtis Burch said “After having received such fantastic responses from audiences in Toronto, we are thrilled to have made a deal with Howard Cohen and Eric d’Arbeloff and their world-class Roadside Attractions. Our movie is in excellent hands.”

The deal was negotiated by Roadside’s Cohen and CAA on behalf of the filmmakers.

Voltage Pictures is handling international rights to the film and presented the project to buyers at the Toronto International Film Festival.

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ABOUT ROADSIDE ATTRACTIONS

In its tenth year of operation, ROADSIDE ATTRACTIONS films have grossed over $180M and garnered twelve Academy Award nominations, including one win. Roadside has released such critical and commercial hits as MUD, WINTER’S BONE, THE COVE, ARBITRAGE, MARGIN CALL and SUPER SIZE ME. Its upcoming slate includes the Cannes sensation ALL IS LOST starring Robert Redford, BLOOD TIES starring Clive Owen, Mila Kunis and Marion Cotillard, and the John le Carré adaptation A MOST WANTED MAN starring Philip Seymour Hoffman and Rachel McAdams.

ABOUT LATITUDE PRODUCTIONS

Latitude Productions is a motion picture production company operating out of Los Angeles and financed by private equity from Dallas. “Words and Pictures” is Latitude’s first movie; it’s second film, “Life Itself” starring Morgan Freeman and Diane Keaton, produced in association with Revelations Entertainment, begins shooting in New York on September 23. It is being directed by Richard Loncraine and was written by Charlie Peters based on the novel “Heroic Measures” by Jill Ciment. Latitude represents the vision of a highly regarded creative executive, Curtis Burch, who has more than 25 years of industry experience, having worked as a senior executive for Keith Barish (“The Fugitive”), Larry Gordon (“Die Hard,” “Field of Dreams”), Rob Reiner (“A Few Good Men,” “American President”) and James Cameron (“Titanic”).

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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