Fox Searchlight acquires Sundance hit ‘Birth of a Nation’

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Fox Searchlight outbid major studios, including Weinstein Co., Netflix and Paramount. That’s probably why Fox Searchlight put in a $16 million bid for the film, as TheWrap reported.

“The Birth of a Nation”: Nate Parker directs and stars in an account of the Nat Turner-led slave rebellion that seizes the title of D.W. Griffith’s racist civil war epic.

Like the preacher he plays so well in his film, he issued a call to action to his Sundance audience and beyond: “Are you passive or are you corrupt and complicit?”

“The Birth of a Nation” – a film Nate Parker produced, directed and starred in – set a record price tag after it received multiple standing ovations at the Sundance Film Festival.

The deal was brokered by Fox Searchlight’s Executive Vice President of Business Affairs Megan O’Brien and Senior Vice President of Acquisitions & Co-Productions Ray Strache, with WME Global and Christian Simonds and Jared Bloch of Gray Krauss Stratford Sandler Des Rochers on behalf of the filmmakers. The eruption of praise on social media for his portrait of Nat Turner’s 1831 slave rebellion following the screening Monday evening was indication enough. “I made this film for one reason: creating change agents”, Parker told the Sundance crowd after his film’s premiere. Parker, a young actor who got his start in Denzel Washington’s “The Great Debaters”, has been saying this was a passion project for seven years.

San Antonio Spur Tony Parker was an early backer of “The Birth of a Nation”.

In terms of the Hollywood community, the movie also arrives following the announcement of a field of Oscars acting nominees that are all white.

“And then they can’t unknow it, they can’t unsee what they saw, and when they leave they’ll have to ask themselves, ‘What is my role?’ and ‘Am I doing all I could be doing?”

She had lines in the script, but Nate and I discussed her not having any.

Amazon completed what has been the second-biggest deal for Sundance so far, shelling out $10 million for North American distribution rights to “Manchester by the Sea”, a family drama starring Casey Affleck that is also considered a likely awards contender. Fox Searchlight, on the other hand, promised a theatrical release timed to awards season.

“I’ve poured everything that I am into making it”, he said.

“Anytime we’re dealing with our history, specifically with slavery, I’ve found it’s been desperately sanitized, so there’s a resistance to dealing with this material”, Parker said.