Focus Features Picks Up Race Drama ‘Loving’ Starring Joel Edgerton And Ruth NeggaPosted by Wilson Morales
February 13, 2016
Focus Features has acquired the North American rights and most major international territories including the U.K., Germany and Latin America from Big Beach and Raindog Films to distribute the upcoming film “Loving,” written & directed by Jeff Nichols, and starring Ruth Negga and Joel Edgerton as Mildred and Richard Loving, the couple behind the seminal 1967 civil rights case Loving vs. Virginia.
According to Variety, the deal was for nearly $9 million and was announced Saturday at the Berlin Film Festival. It is the first major transaction for Focus since its Feb. 4 reorganization, which saw the exit of CEO Peter Schlessel.
The film, which premiered at the Berlin Film Festival, co-stars Michael Shannon, Nick Kroll, Marton Csokas, Jon Bass, and Bill Camp.
Ged Doherty & Colin Firth (“Eye In The Sky”), Sarah Green, Buirski and Big Beach’s Marc Turtletaub & Peter Saraf produced the film, which was is inspired by the documentary The Loving Story. Richard and Mildred Loving, an interracial couple, were married in June 1958. As a result, authorities broke into their home, arrested them, and they were sentenced to a year in the state penitentiary. This sentence was suspended on the condition that they be exiled from the state of Virginia. Unbowed, the couple spent the next nine years fighting to get home, together.
