Toronto: Millennium Buys 'What Maisie Knew'

EXCLUSIVE: Millennium Entertainment is closing a deal for North American rights on What Maisie Knew, the film by Scott McGehee and David Siegel that premiered last Friday at Roy Thomson Hall. Deal is worth around $2 million minimum guarantee. I hear that distribution heavyweight Bob Berney is consulting for Red Crown, which financed the film along with some private equity investors. Berney will help guide the film when it gets released next spring. Millennium Entertainment, run by Bill Lee, is coming off the indie success Bernie and has the Lee Daniels-directed The Paperboy upcoming. The plan is to try and replicate that Bernie success with a similar theatrical platform release.

The film stars Alexander Skarsgard, Julianne Moore and Steve Coogan and revolves around the 7-year old title character, played by Onata Aprile. She is caught in a custody battle between her aging mother rock star and her art dealer father. WME Global’s Mark Ankner is negotiating this deal with Millennium’s Lee and Tristen Tuckfield. It’s the third deal that the agency was involved in today. WME and Cinetic Media rep the filmmakers along with Oasis.

The filmmakers directed Bee Season and The Deep End, and this one was adapted from the Henry James novel by Carroll Cartwright and Nancy Doyne, with Red Crown’s Daniel Crown producing with Daniela Taplin Lundberg, William Teitler, Charles Weinstock and Riva Marker.