Sony/TriStar Closes 8-Figure Deal For Lord-Miller Hybrid Animation ‘Last Human’

EXCLUSIVE: Sony Pictures is putting the finishing touches on a huge deal that brings the studio Last Human, a package for a tentpole project to be directed and produced by Phil Lord & Christopher Miller, one that all weekend had Universal, Warner Bros, Netflix, MGM/Annapurna, Paramount, New Regency and MRC all bidding. Everybody but Fox/Disney, after Lord & Miller were unceremoniously dropped from the Star Wars spinoff Solo.

Sources said the upfront commitment is eight-figures — I’m hearing as high as $15 million — and that between directing and producing, Lord and Miller will each get a double-digit back end. This auction got that hot. It’s easily going to be the biggest deal of the new year when it’s all papered. The film will be made through Sony’s TriStar label, with Hannah Minghella overseeing.

Pic is based on an upcoming children’s book of the same name by Lee Bacon. Shazam scribe Henry Gayden is writing a film that is set after a robot apocalypse and follows a 12-year-old robot who bonds with a 12-year-old human who has lived in an underground bunker. Pic is eyed as a “reverse ET, in which three robots discover and protect a human child. Pic will be Lord & Miller’s next film after they finish Artemis at Fox. The book will be published in October by Amulet Books.

Lord and Miller head into the final Oscar voting as frontrunners for the animated film Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse. This is Sony, stepping up big time for a filmmaking team that is also a creative partner on the 21 Jump Street films and will be front and center in the inevitable sequel to Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse.

UTA brokered the deal and reps Lord-Miller along with Ziffren Brittenham LLP. Gayden is repped by UTA, Kaplan/Perrone and Hansen Jacobsen. Bacon is repped by UTA and Sarah Burnes at The Gernert Company.