EXCLUSIVE: Oscar nominee Greg Kwedar (Sing Sing) will direct fantastical comedy Possum Song led by Top Gun: Maverick, Whiplash and The Gorge star Miles Teller.
Isaac Adamson wrote the original screenplay for which Conclave and Anora outfit FilmNation Entertainment is launching pre-sales out of Cannes and will produce alongside Ethos, the production banner of Kwedar and his longtime creative partner, Oscar nominated Clint Bentley (Train Dreams). Teller, and Lee Stobby will also produce.
CAA Media Finance is co-repping domestic rights. FilmNation will fully finance.
Possum Song will follow Eddie (Teller), an overconfident Nashville star, who is hiding a dark secret – he stole the songs for his hit debut album. Now, with a new wife and a baby on the way, Eddie must write his follow-up solo or risk losing everything. But just when things seem most hopeless, Eddie discovers a musical genius in the form of a magical possum with whom he strikes a dangerous Faustian bargain.
“This is a one-of-a-kind film. Greg’s vision, Isaac’s hilarious script and the magnetic performance of Miles Teller will create the kind of cinematic ride that audiences are craving— with showstopping music, visceral shocks, possums, humor, and emotion,” said Ben Browning, FilmNation Entertainment’s President of Motion Pictures.
Teller is coming off Apple’s biggest film debut to date, The Gorge. He recently wrapped production on Lionsgate’s Michael Jackson biopic Michael and A24’s Eternity, in which he stars opposite Elizabeth Olsen and Callum Turner.
Greg Kwedar and Clint Bentley’s Sing Sing was picked up by A24 and went on to score three Oscar nominations this past season. Kwedar directed and co-wrote the script while Bentley co-wrote and produced. The duo’s sophomore film Jockey, which Bentley directed and Kwedar co-wrote, premiered in Competition at Sundance where it won a Special Jury Prize was acquired by Sony Pictures Classics. They recently collaborated on Bentley’s Sundance pic Train Dreams, starring Joel Edgerton, Felicity Jones, William H Macy and Kerry Condon, which was snapped up by Netflix. They recently launched a production company Ethos.
Adamson’s scripts include Bubbles and Chippendales.
As we revealed, FilmNation’s Cannes market slate also includes Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem starrer Bunker. The company will also have Olivia Wilde’s comedy The Invite, starring Seth Rogen, Penelope Cruz and Edward Norton, Cannes entry La Ola by Sebastián Lelio, and Tomas Alfredson’s Jack Thorne script Séance on a Wet Afternoon with Rachel Weisz.
Teller is repped by CAA and Goodman, Genow. Kwedar is repped by CAA, Black Bear, and Johnson Shapiro Slewett & Kole. Adamson is repped by CAA, Lee Stobby Entertainment, and Goodman, Genow.