IFC Unloads Midnight Madness Movie ‘River’ For $10M+ To Blumhouse & Universal

The first big sale out of the festival is an odd duck. IFC came in with Joshua Guiliano’s River in Midnight Madness. The response was so rabid that other distributors wanted it including Jason Blum (who has his Blumhouse Atomic Monster deal at Universal) and Sony. Sony looked to be the last studio standing with a bid of $8M. Focus, Paramount, A24, Netflix all passed by Saturday night. This morning, Sony was out, then Blum along with Universal were in, taking the feature about three embittered siblings stranded on a country boat who are stalked by a faceless killer for over $10M. Jane Levy and Jessica Rothe star.

Last year, Blumhouse, with Focus Features, acquired Obsession out of TIFF for $15M. That turned into. massive global grossing hit with more than $513M at the box office, and that Curry Barker title is pushing for award.

Get our Breaking News Alerts and Keep your inbox happy.

Comments On Deadline Hollywood are monitored. So don't go off topic, don't impersonate anyone, and don't get your facts wrong.

Δdocument.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() );