EXCLUSIVE: In a competitive situation, Lionsgate has landed Renegotiate, a high-concept action-thriller spec by Mark Townend, sources tell us.
The film centers on a troubled FBI crisis negotiator who finds himself stuck in a time loop, re-living the events of a bombing and struggling to stop it before time runs out. Think Source Code meets Phone Booth. Ric Roman Waugh and Brendon Boyea will produce for CineMachine, alongside Brian Kavanagh Jones and Fred Berger for Range, with AJ Bourscheid executive producing.
Townend’s deal is remarkable, we’re told, for a writer with no produced credits, particularly given that the script was taken out without any talent attachments. Sources described the outcome as a three-way bidding war that resulted in a mid-six-figure guaranteed fee against a low-seven-figure purchase/bonus. The script was taken out on the first Monday of April, and by Friday of that week, 20 premium production companies were chasing aggressively. Ultimately, CineMachine and Range partnered to take the project into Lionsgate, which took the script off the table at a strong offer, on a short clock.
Scott O’Brien will oversee for Lionsgate. Dan Freedman negotiated the deal on behalf of the studio.
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Repped by Paradigm, Bellevue Productions and attorney Marios Rush, Townend is no stranger to splashy deals, having sold multiple specs to major studios while landing on the Black List several times. Sugar23 is packaging his spec The Donor, with his 2024 Black List script Timeshare set to be produced by Vertigo and Entertainment 360.
Townend’s original spec Augmented sold to Warner Bros with LuckyChap and Denise Di Novi producing. The scribe set up his spec Continuum at Byron Allen’s Entertainment Studios with Elliott Lester directing and Barry Josephson producing, and his screenplay Black Iris is set up at Richard Saperstein’s Bluestone Entertainment with Christopher MacBride directing and Studio 8 producing. Family Secrets, a feature he wrote for Ace Entertainment, recently wrapped production. On the TV side, he is currently developing a series for South Korean television with Bound Entertainment, as well as another project with Sugar23.
Boyea and Waugh’s upcoming projects at CineMachine include Lionsgate’s Greenland: Migration — the sequel to 2020 Gerard Butler thriller Greenland — and an untitled Jason Statham thriller for Black Bear. Waugh is best known for directing the Greenland films, as well as titles like Shot Caller, Angel Has Fallen, National Champions and Kandahar.
Range, meanwhile, is coming off of the release of Osgood Perkins’ The Monkey and A Complete Unknown, James Mangold’s Oscar-nominated drama starring Timothée Chalamet as Bob Dylan. Upcoming, the company has Perkins’ latest Neon horror pic Keeper as well as Dangerous Animals, a horror thriller to be released by IFC Films following its premiere in Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes.
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