News

A year and a half ago, it was announced that production had wrapped on an erotic thriller called The Bird and the Bee, which reunited star Alicia Silverstone with both her Reptile co-star Karl Glusman and her King Cobra director Justin Kelly. Now, Deadline reports that Shout! Studios has secured exclusive distribution rights to the film, which is now going by the title Pretty Thing, in the United States and Canada. This deal includes “theatrical, home entertainment rights, and ancillary rights for cross-platform releases.” Shout! is planning to bring Pretty Thing to theatres and “all major entertainment platforms” later this year.

Scripted by Atlantis actor Jack Donnelly, the film was shot under a SAG-AFTRA Interim Agreement during the 2023 strikes. The story centers on a successful executive (Silverstone) as she fights back a scorned younger lover (Glusman) who takes his obsession too far.

Pretty Thing is coming our way from Yale Productions.

Exclusive: Shout! Studio has acquired North American rights to Justin Kelly’s sexually charged thriller Pretty Thing, co-starring Alicia Silverstone and Karl Glusman.

Silverstone co-stars as a successful executive opposite Glusman, a younger lover, who reveals a deadly obsessive streak.

Originally announced by Deadline as The Bird And The Bee, the movie reunites Kelly with Silverstone, who had a supporting role in his 2016 gay porn world thriller King Cobra.

In between times, Kelly made murder-mystery Welcome the Stranger, co-starring Abbey Lee, Caleb Landry Jones and Riley Keough, and J.T. Leroy with Kristen Stewart and Laura Dern.

Pretty Thing is produced by Yale Entertainment and Great Escape and is directed from a debut feature screenplay by Jack Donnelly.

Leads Silverstone and Glusman are joined on screen by also features of Catherine Curtin, Britne Oldford, and Tammy Blanchard.

Shout! Studios has secured exclusive distribution rights to Pretty Thing in the U.S. and Canada, including theatrical, home entertainment rights and ancillary rights for cross-platform releases.

Shout! plans a strategic launch of this movie in theaters and across all major entertainment platforms later this year.

“There is a perennial and voracious demand for high quality, sexy thrillers in the marketplace, and Justin has served up a pretty delicious one. With Alicia Silverstone leading the cast, this was a no-brainer for us,” said Shout’s SVP of Acquisitions and Originals, Jordan Fields.

“It was an honor working with the iconic Alicia Silverstone for the second time (after King Cobra) as well as the uber-talented Karl Glusman— their on-screen chemistry is electric. A big thank you to Yale Productions for our third collaboration together, and to my incredible cast and crew. I cannot wait to share this film with the world,” Kelly said.

Jordan Yale Levine and Jordan Beckerman of Yale Productions produced with Lexi Tannenholtz, Scott Levenson, and Jesse Korman.

“Shout has been a terrific distribution partner and we’re very excited to solidify our continued relationship with their talented team,” Levine and Beckerman said in a joint statement.

Michael Day and Joy Kim-Crilley serve as co-producers. Executive producers include John Wollman, Paul Wedgwood, Nicholas Donnermeyer, Julie Foss, Gigi Lacks, Andy Rich, David Nazar, Jeremy Rothstein, Lauren Rothstein, Jodie Lazar, Robert Levine, Will Hirschfeld, John McMullen, Eric Broughton, Brian S. Unger, Michael J. Rothstein, Matthew Ajayi, Dajana Gudic, Driss Ouazaani, Amber Martin, Ben Walter, Inna Ivanova Walter, Jeffrey Tussi, Coleman Lannum, Kurt Fethke, Kyle Fethke, John S. Phillips, Leslie A. Phillips, Jason Kringstein, and Cavallino Entertainment. Co-executive producers are Jill Bussanich, Paul Tietz, Joseph Huguenot, Amy E. Newman, Matthew W. Newman, Michael Dibiasio-Ornelas, Eric Goren, Michael Burkert, and Maximus Seale.

Exclusive: Kit Harington (Game of Thrones) and Billy Magnussen (Roadhouse) have been set to star in Steve Pink’s out-there horse racing comedy Chariot.

This sounds a fun one. The synopsis reads: “Paul Rovia, an oversized jockey, seeks redemption after causing a major racing accident that gets him suspended from the sport for two years. Desperate to compete in the Grand National again, Paul teams up with Kate O’Leary and her wild Centaur named Chariot. Paul and Chariot clash at first but eventually form an unstoppable duo, taking the racing world by storm.”

Pink is known for writing Grosse Pointe Blank and High Fidelity and directed Hot Tub Time Machine, About Last Night and most recently The Wheel.

The Exchange is launching worldwide sales on the movie at the upcoming American Film Market. The sales deal was negotiated by Brian O’Shea on behalf of The Exchange and by Lastine Entertainment Lawon behalf of the filmmakers.

Yorgos Lanthimos has added Alicia Silverstone to the star-studded cast of “Bugonia,” his upcoming sci-fi conspiracy movie led by Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons.

Best known for her iconic role as Cher in “Clueless” (which she reprised last year during the Super Bowl), Silverstone memorably appeared in Lanthimos’ 2017 psychological thriller “The Killing of a Sacred Deer.”

The Oscar-nominated filmmaker’s latest movie follows two conspiracy-obsessed young men who kidnap the high-powered CEO of a major company, convinced that she is an alien intent on destroying planet Earth. The script is from Emmy winner Will Tracy, based on the 2003 South Korean comedy “Save the Green Planet.” Details of Silverstone’s role are being kept under wraps.

“Bugonia” was developed by “Parasite” producer Cj Enm with Ari Aster and Lars Knudsen at Square Peg. Lanthomis, Aster and Knudson are producing the project with Ed Guiney and Andrew Lowe (Element Pictures), alongside Stone...

Los Angeles-based Great Escape has kicked off sales talks in Toronto on heist thriller Stranglehold starring Ashley Benson from Spring Breakers and Jake Lacy from The White Lotus alongside Justin Long, and Ron Perlman.

Clark Duke directs the feature, which shot this summer and is in the vein of Dog Day Afternoon, Die Hard and the Coen Brothers oeuvre.

Benson stars as a stripper with aspirations of becoming a professional dancer who ekes out a living with her husband (Lacy). They decide to pull off a Christmas party heist at the strip club where she works, unaware that a group...

Oz Perkins, also credited as Osgood Perkins, is a contemporary horror filmmaker with a very distinctive style. His films take ... their ... time. They gradually sink their teeth into you, building suspense slowly until the very last moments of the film, leaving a stinging bite that is hard to forget. Using ambient soundscapes and an often plodding pace, Perkins infuses his films with an existential dread. He artfully plays with light and shadow, crafting very well-composed shots that more often resemble a painting. Perkins uses the camera as his paintbrush, employing techniques like wide angles, low angles, and tracking shots to create a very dynamic palette. Gruesome violence is often presented in a mundane, almost everyday manner. His filmography requires the utmost patience, but it creeps and crawls in the subtlest of ways.

In an interview with MovieMaker magazine, Oz Perkins stated, "Horror movies are self-help movies about dealing with death.

US-based Great Escape, the sales arm of Yale Entertainment, has close early sales here on psychological thriller Clawfoot produced by one of the companies behind Competition selection The Apprentice.

The Movie Partnership has picked up the completed film for UK & Ireland, while Defiant will distribute in Australia and New Zealand, Tiberius in German-speaking Europe and Front Row for the Middle East.

Further sales have closed in Poland (9th Plan), former Yugoslavia (McF), Portugal (Cinemundo), and Ukraine (Top Film). Great Escape president Nick Donnermeyer said negotiations on a US deal are in advanced stages.

Michael Day’s feature directorial debut stars...

Exclusive: Karl Glusman (Civil War) has been set as the male lead opposite Samara Weaving in 20th Century Studios’ heist thriller Eenie Meanie, from writer-director Shawn Simmons (Wayne).

Produced by the Deadpool franchise’s Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, the film follows Edie (Weaving), a former teenage getaway driver who is dragged back into her unsavory past when a former employer offers her a chance to save the life of her chronically unreliable ex-boyfriend.

Glusman plays Edie’s on-again-off-again boyfriend, John. Sources tell Deadline the project is likely to premiere on Hulu.

Best known for roles in films including Gaspar Noé’s Love, Nicolas Winding Refn’s The Neon Demon, and Chloe Okuno’s breakout horror Watcher, as well as Alex Garland’s FX series Devs, Glusman has more recently been seen in Netflix’s #1-debuting crime pic Reptile, Nick Cassavetes’ God Is a Bullet, and HBO’s The Idol from creators Sam Levinson,...

Exclusive: Yale Productions appoints Michael Day its new Head of Production—as announced today by Yale Entertainment’s Jordan Yale Levine and Jordan Beckerman.

Previously, Day collaborated with Yale Productions as a producer on a string of successful projects, including Rare Objects, As They Made Us, and The Kill Room. Continuing this partnership, he notably produced and directed the dark comedy/thriller Clawfoot, which stars Francesca Eastwood, Milo Gibson, and Olivia Culpo. It notably made its premiere at the Newport Beach Film Festival this year.

He has hit the ground running as Head of Production. Under Day’s purview, Yale just finished production on its much-anticipated sexual thriller The Bird And The Bee, co-starring Alicia Silverstone and Karl Glusman and directed by Justin Kelly. Right now, he’s overseeing post-production on his second feature, Fog Of War. The latter notably stars John Cusack, Brianna Hildebrand and Jake Abel.

Day commented,...