Heading into day one of the American Film Market, Los Angeles-based sales outfit Palisades Park Pictures has closed multiple territory deals on the high-profile adaptation of Enid Blyton’s beloved children’s novel The Magic Faraway Tree, starring Andrew Garfield and Claire Foy.
The deals include Leonine acquiring rights for Germany, Austria and Switzerland; VVS Films handling Australia and New Zealand; and Sun Distribution taking Latin America, Spain and Portugal. Additional markets closed are Poland via KinoSwiat; Middle East (Selim Ramia); Indonesia (PT Prima Entertainment); Philippines (Pioneer Films); Israel (Shoval Film); Turkey (Leon Creative Concepts); Romania (Magic Media); former Yugoslavia (Karantanija Film); Czech Republic (AQS Films); South Africa (Empire Entertainment) and the CIS region (Arna Media). Entertainment Film Distributors already holds U.K. rights for the film in a previously announced deal.
Directed by Ben Gregor from a screenplay by Simon Farnaby (co-writer of Wonka and Paddington 2), the film follows a modern family relocating to the countryside, where the children stumble on a mysterious tree that helps reconnect them with each other and with wonder. Rounding out the film’s impressive cast are Rebecca Ferguson (Dune, Mission Impossible), Nicola Coughlan (Derry Girls), Jessica Gunning (Baby Reindeer) and Jennifer Saunders (Absolutely Fabulous).
Producer credits include Neal Street Productions’s Pippa Harris and Nicolas Brown alongside Danny Perkins of Elysian Film Group, with executive producers including Palisades Park’s CEO Tamara Birkemoe plus the team at Ashland Hill Media Finance (Simon Williams, Joe Simpson, Merrick Stoller, Andy Wang and Matthew Chausse). U.S. rights are co-represented by CAA Media Finance and the project is financed by Ashland Hill.
Birkemoe, who will be hosting a private market screening of The Magic Faraway Tree at AFM, said: “The combination of Simon’s magical adaptation of this best-selling book and Ben’s visual artistry have created a captivating cinematic event for audiences of all ages across the globe.”
Palisades’ further AFM sales slate features several high-concept titles: The Revisionist starring Dustin Hoffman, Alison Brie, André Holland and Tom Sturridge; the live-action monster tale Grendel with Jeff Bridges, Dave Bautista, Sam Elliott, Thomasin McKenzie, Aidan Turner and T Bone Burnett; Eyes In The Trees featuring Anthony Hopkins, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Ashley Greene, Thomas Kretschmann and Praya Lundberg; and That’s Amore! starring John Travolta, Katherine Heigl and Christopher Walken.
