March 03, 2005
Jeremy Kay in Los Angeles

First Independent takes US rights to Edmond

Gary Rubin's First Independent Pictures (FIP) has acquired all US and Canadian rights to Edmond, the all-star screen adaptation of David Mamet's picaresque tale of self-discovery.

Wild Bunch has taken international rights on the project, which recently wrapped and is directed by Stuart Gordon, while Tartan UK has picked up for the UK and Eire.

Starring William H Macy, Julia Stiles, Bail Ling, Joe Mantegna, Denise Richards, Mena Suvari, and Dylan Walsh, among others, Edmond centres on the dark story of an everyman who abandons his boring life and embarks upon a search for fulfillment.

Chris Hanley and Molly Hassell of Muse Productions served as producers, along with Kevin Ragsdale of Pretty Dangerous Films, Duffy Hecht, Stuart Gordon, Roger Kass and Mary McCann.

Tricia van Klaveren, Rubin, Steven Hays, Felix and Katherine Werner, Hamish McAlpine, Al Corley, Bart Rosenblatt and Eugene Musso served as executive producers.

Rubin and Shelley Surpin of Surpin, Mayerson and Edelstone negotiated on behalf of FIP.

"FIP is very gratified to be picking up a great dark work from one of our master writers, David Mamet, and with an astonishingly fine role for William H Macy, who again proves himself to be one of America's greatest actors," Rubin said in a statement.

First Independent Pictures' first theatrical release Mail Order Wife is scheduled to open in Los Angeles and New York on March 11th.

Gordon previously directed the world premiere of Mamet's Sexual Perversity In Chicago, mounted at the director's Chicago-based Organic Theatre.

(Jeremy Kay)