News

Signature Entertainment acquire 10 feature films at AFM

LONDON – Wednesday 19 November. Signature Entertainment has today announced their acquisition of 12 titles to add to their slate for 2015.

The latest films to be announced for UK release by Signature Entertainment are as follows:

 

  • THE KIDNAPPING OF FREDDY HEINEKEN

From Embankment Films, directed by Daniel Alfredson (The Girl Who Played with Fire, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest) and starring Jim Sturgess, Sam Worthington, and Anthony Hopkins. Based on the true story, and book of the same name, this is the inside story of the planning, execution, rousing aftermath and ultimate downfall of the kidnappers of beer tycoon Alfred “Freddy” Heineken (Hopkins), which resulted in the largest ransom ever paid for an individual.

 

  • LAST KNIGHTS

From Arclight Films, Last Knights tells the story of a knight seeking vengeance when his lord is unjustly executed by a tyrannical emperor. Commander Raiden (Clive Owen) receives the highest honour when Bartok (Morgan Freeman), his childless lord, names him as his heir. But his happiness is destroyed when the emperor’s evil emissary Mott (Aksel Hennie) forces him to behead his surrogate father, and casts him and his men out of their castle divested of all titles and livelihood. But even as the paranoid Mott seeks to erase any trace of the Bartok’s clan and legacy, Raiden secretly conspires an audacious plan to infiltrate Mott’s impenetrable forts and exact revenge.

 

  • RUTH& ALEX

From Myriad Pictures, Ruth & Alex is a smart comedy directed by Richard Loncraine (Wimbledon), Ruth (Diane Keaton; The Godfather Trilogy, Annie Hall ) and Alex (Morgan Freeman; Million Dollar Baby, The Shawshank Redemption) first moved to Brooklyn when it was the 1970s — years before gentrification, and years before they would realise that they won’t always be physically able to climb several flights of stairs just to get home. Still highly active, yet feeling the undeniable effects of age, the couple opts to put their apartment on the market. But the decision coincides with a flurry of problematic events. A large truck jack-knifes on the Williamsburg Bridge and the driver inexplicably flees the scene, putting all of New York on an overblown terrorist alert. The couple’s dog becomes ill and the vet bill comes to $10,000. An overwhelming sequence of encounters with realtors, agents, and snotty bargain hunters only adds to their troubles. The film had its world premiere at the Toronto Film Festival 2014, and is being distributed n the US by Focus Features.

 

  • THE LOFT

From IM Global, James Marsden (X-Men), Wentworth Miller (Prison Break), Karl Urban (Star Trek), and Rhona Mitra (Shooter) star in this psychological thriller that tells the story of 5 married men who secretly share a penthouse in which they can carry out their hidden fantasies, namely extra-marital affairs. But when an unknown woman is found dead in the loft, everybody begins to suspect one another and their lives start to crumble around them. THE LOFT is releasing in the US on 1500 screens, and is a remake of the smash hit Dutch film shot with the same director. The film also introduces features the rising star Isabel Lucas (Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen), and the much loved Eric Stonestreet (Modern Family)

 

  • AD INEXPLORATA: TOWARD THE UNKNOWN –

From IM Global, directed by Mark Rosenberg, winner of the 2014 Sundance Institute NHK Award, comes the story of an astronaut heading to Mars alone on a one-way mission. Captain William D. Stanaforth (Mark Strong; Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and Sherlock Holmes), is a NASA pilot alone on a one-way mission toward the unknown. Faced with mechanical problems, physical suffering from long distance space travel, and the mental obstacles of a journey into the unknown, the trip begins to take its toll on the ship…and Stanaforth’s mind.

 

  • ELSA AND FRED

From Lotus Entertainment, directed by Academy Award winner Michael Radford (Il Postino: The Postman, Ninteen Eighty-Four), and starring Academy Award Winners Christopher Plummer and Shirley MacLaine, ELSA AND FRED is the story of two people who, at the end of the road, discover that it’s never too late to love. After losing his wife, Fred (Christopher Plummer) feels disturbed, confused and alone, so his daughter (Marcia Gay Harden; Into The Wild, Mystic River) helps move him into a small apartment where he meets Elsa (Shirley Maclaine). From that moment on, everything changes. Elsa bursts into Fred’s life like a whirlwind, determined to teach him that the time he has left to live be it more or less is precious and that he should enjoy it as he pleases.

 

  • FREQUENCIES

From Monte Cristo, directed by Darren Paul Fisher (Inbetweeners, Popcorrn), the critically acclaimed Frequencies is set In a world that is not quite here and not quite now, a young Zak (Daniel Fraser; The Patrol, Lab Rats) and Marie (Eleanor Wyld; Johnny English: Reborn) meet. However, in this world this simple occurrence should not be possible. In this world human frequency has been discovered. If you are high frequency, you are born lucky – you will have natural ‘timing’ and always be in the right place at the right time. If you are low frequency every natural law will conspire against you. Marie is super-high frequency, Zak is ultra-low. Nature should ensure that they never cross paths. Yet they do. Every year they get to spend exactly one minute together before nature dramatically intervenes. Over the years it becomes an obsession for Zak to change his frequency and be with Marie. What he discovers may allow him to realise his dream, but will change everything we know about ourselves and our destinies, forever.

 

  • HARBINGER DOWN

From The Exchange, a group of graduate students have booked passage on the fishing trawler Harbinger to study the effects of global warming on a pod of Orcas in the Bering Sea. When the ship’s crew dredges up a recently thawed piece of old Soviet space wreckage, things get downright deadly. It seems that the Russians experimented with tardigrades, tiny resilient animals able to withstand the extremes of space radiation. The creatures survived, but not without mutation. Now the crew is exposed to aggressively mutating organisms. And after being locked in ice for 3 decades, the creatures aren’t about to give up the warmth of human companionship. This visceral feature is film is directed by Alec Gillis (SFX; Ender’s Game, X-Men: First Class), and has visual effects from Academy Award winning VFX supervisor Robert Skotak (Titanic, Aliens, Terminator 2).

 

  • THE PHOENIX INCIDENT

From Continental, an in-depth investigation with actual eyewitnesses to the UFO incident that occurred in Phoenix, Arizona which was seen by thousands of people in 1997. Then Governor of Arizona, Fife Symington, made a statement disclaiming the incident, only to recant 10 years later on the evening of Sirius Seminar’s conference commemorating the ten year anniversary of the incident.

 

  • JUNE

From Ravenbanner, a nine-year old orphan becomes a vessel of a supernatural being called Aer. June struggles to hold Aer back from lashing out when other kids tease and bully her. Are leaves a trail of destruction and destroyed foster homes in her wake. June quickly bonds with her new adoptive parents but she must discover her true identity to overcome this inner demon and save herself, and her family.

 

  • DINO TIME

From Myriad Pictures, featuring and all star voice cast including Melanie Griffiths (Lolita, Working Girl), Rob Schneider (Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo), Steven Baldwin (The Usual Suspects, Born on The 4th of July), William Baldwin (Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Backdraft) and John DiMaggio (The Simpsons, Futurama), DINO TIME tells the story of three inquisitive kids who accidentally force an egg-shaped time machine into operation. They soon find themselves back 65 million years in a time where Dinosaurs roamed the earth freely.

 

Katherine Mills, Head of Marketing for Signature Entertainment says, “We are incredibly excited about adding these films to our slate because whilst each film is so different, they are all brought together by a great potential to resonate with UK audiences. LAST KNIGHTS is a phenomenal fantasy action movie lead by two powerhouse actors in Morgan Freeman and Clive Owen. ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE will capture the hearts and laughs of all rom-com fans, and HARBINGER DOWN puts a fresh spin on the problem of global warming, a story which resonates with everyone on the planet. We look forward to bringing these films and many others to UK audiences through 2015. With so many fantastic films to work with to bolster our already strong slate, we couldn’t be happier and can’t wait to make 2015 an incredible success”.