Sky Cinema to release Amazon’s Life Itself in the UK
David Farnor | On 12, Jul 2018
Dan Fogelman’s new film Life Itself will be released by Sky Cinema in the UK.
Amazon Studios’ latest original project, the movie is a multi-generational love story, with characters’ lives intersecting over several decades in New York and the Spanish countryside. The cast includes a wealth of star names, from Oscar Isaac and Olivia Wilde to Antonio Banderas, Annette Bening, Olivia Cooke, Laia Costa and Mandy Patinkin.
That cast list alone is enough to attract attention, but Life Itself’s strongest asset is perhaps behind the camera: it’s the new film from Dan Fogelman, the creator of smash hit US drama This Is Us (currently airing its second season on More4). After earning a hefty 10 Emmy nominations in 2017, and with Life Itself topping the Black List of unproduced screenplays, a bidding war erupted for the US rights to the movie – and Amazon Studios outbid both Paramount and Universal for the project, spending over $10 million. Now, Sky Cinema has stepped in to scoop up the UK rights for the film.
The film will be premiere in UK cinemas in January 2019, when it will also be released on Sky Cinema on the same day. Here’s the trailer:
Amazon Studios splashes $10m on This Is Us creator’s new film
6th December 2017
Amazon Studios has splashed a whopping $10 million-plus on the new film from Dan Fogelman.
Fogelman is best known for his TV drama This Is Us, which earned a hefty 10 Emmy nominations this year, including Outstanding Drama Series. Since then, he has become something of a hot property, with his new project, Life, Itself, on the radar of distributors ever since its script topped the Black Script. Packaged by FilmNation and presented at Berlin, just as the NBC series broke out to huge acclaim, the film has now sparked a major bidding deal for the US rights – and Amazon has come out swinging.
The movie is a multi-generational love story, reports Deadline, with characters’ lives intersecting over several decades in New York and the Spanish countryside. The cast includes a wealth of star names, from Oscar Isaac and Olivia Wilde to Antonio Banderas, Annette Bening, Olivia Cooke, Laia Costa and Mandy Patinkin. It is produced by Temple Hill’s Marty Bowen and Wyck Godfrey, FilmNation Entertainment’s Aaron Ryder, and Fogelman.
Fogelman’s feature film work includes the scripts for Cars, Tangled and Bolt, as well as Last Vegas and Stupid, Crazy, Love. He has previously directed the Al Pacion film Danny Collins.
Amazon Studios outbid Paramount and Universal for the project, spending over $10 million. The bidding contest for the film has been going for 10 days, including each bidder proposing how they would release the film in the Oscar corridor next year.
Amazon has only nabbed the US rights to the movie, but the deal marks one of the year’s biggest acquisition sums – a major indicator of how deep Amazon’s pockets can go, and how much it is willing to invest to put itself ahead of the competition. The deal arrives hot on the heels of an agreement with NBC for the subscription streaming rights to This Is Us, with Season 1 now available on Amazon Prime Video.