Ben Affleck, Matt Damon and RedBird Capital Gerry Cardinale‘s independent artist-led studio, Artists Equity, has signed an overall three-year theatrical feature film agreement with Sony Pictures.
The deal calls for Sony handling the global release of Artists Equity productions. The Culver City lot will also finance the films and handle all ancillaries, with Artists Equity having the option to co-finance individual projects.
Artists Equity has had a long-running non-exclusive relationship with Amazon MGM Studios on such movies as Gavin O’Connor’s The Accountant 2 ($102M global box office), Affleck’s Air Jordan Nike movie Air ($90M global) and the William Goldenberg directed, Jennifer Lopez starring Prime Video movie Unstoppable. Those specific features were select deals with that studio, in addition to the Doug Liman directed, Casey Affleck and Damon starring The Instigators with Apple, as well as the Cillian Murphy drama Small Things Like These with Lionsgate.
“Artists Equity, in the short span of its existence, has proven remarkably adept at developing and producing high quality commercial films,” said Tom Rothman, Chairman & CEO of Sony Pictures’ Motion Picture Group. “This is not a surprise to me as I have known the two creative ‘Pros from Dover’ for many years and always admired their smarts, talent and moxie. Now that Ben and Matt and their team have set their sights firmly on the high bar of the theatrical market, Sony is lucky as hell to be partnering with them. We look forward to making a bunch of hit films together.”
Added Artists Equity CEO Affleck, “It’s an enormously meaningful landmark for Artists Equity to be making films for theatrical release with Sony Pictures and in particular with Tom Rothman, with whom Matt and I go back more than twenty years. Tom has both a deep and abiding love for movies and an understanding of and appreciation for how they are made. I can’t think of a better partner than Sony, which is fully in on the theatrical experience, as Artists Equity seeks to make films expressly meant to be seen in the cinema, with an audience. It’s an honor to make films for the magical dark room where we come together with strangers to project our innermost secrets onto a screen, surrendering to a story together, agreeing to share the same flickering dream. I’m grateful for the opportunity to bring movies to a global audience, with the entire expert Sony team.”
Upcoming Artists Equity releases include RIP the Netflix action movie starring Damon, Affleck, Teyana Taylor, and Scott Adkins, directed by Joe Carnahan; Animals a Netflix thriller directed by Affleck starring Affleck, Gillian Anderson, Steven Yeun, and Kerry Washington; and Kiss of the Spider Woman, which was adapted from the seven-Tony Award-winning Broadway musical written and directed by Bill Condon and stars Diego Luna, Tonatiuh and Lopez. That movie world premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival and was acquired by Roadside Attractions, Lionsgate and LD Entertainment.
Damon and Affleck shared an original screenplay Oscar win for Good Will Hunting back in 1998. Affleck went on to win a second Oscar for Best Motion Picture for Argo which he starred in and directed.
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