David Farnor | On 16, Sep 2016

Netflix is in advanced negotiations for Message from the King, starring Chadwick Boseman.

The film, which is directed by Fabrice Du Weiz, just had its premiere at Toronto International Film Festival. The revenge thriller stars Boseman alongside Teresa Palmer and Luke Evans about Jacob King, a mysterious traveller from South Africa, who scours the Los Angeles underworld for the ones who killed his sister.

Written by Oliver Butcher and Stephen Cornwell, who also worked on Jaume Collet-Serra’s Unknown, the film channels racial tension, violence and personal vengeance together with Du Welz’s outsider eye of the city. Cornwell and Butcher have produced the film with David Lancaster and co-producer Logan Coles.

Now, Deadline reports that the eOne project is on the verge of being snapped up by Netflix. The streaming giant has become a force to be reckoned with on the festival circuit, with reports of a seven-figure deal on the table for both the US rights and “some foreign territories”. WME Global is brokering the agreement.

Word of the deal arrives in what has been a relatively slow festival, trade-wise, although Netflix has already made another acquisition in the form of What Happened to Monday?, starring Noomi Rapace and Willem Defoe.

Photo: eOne / TIFF

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