EXCLUSIVE: Sony Pictures Classics has acquired world rights to Puzzle, the directing debut of Big Beach principal Marc Turtletaub that stars Kelly Macdonald as a housewife whose life takes a turn when she enters the world of competitive jigsaw puzzling. Film premiered Tuesday evening at the Eccles Theater and the…

A renowned, Oscar-nominated producer of acclaimed independent films including Little Miss Sunshine and Safety Not Guaranteed, Marc Turtletaub has made his second feature directorial outing with the Sundance-premiering Puzzle. The film follows Agnes (Kelly Macdonald), a suburban mother who is taken for granted by her…

Big Beach, which made past memorable Sundance splashes with Little Miss Sunshine and Safety Not Guaranteed, today launches the first of three projects here at Sundance with its first foray into animation. The premiere of the 3D animated acquisition title White Fang happens this morning at 11:30 AM at the Prospector…

EXCLUSIVE: Marc Turtletaub and Peter Saraf’s New York-based indie production and finance company Big Beach is opening a Los Angeles office, to be led by executive Dani Melia. The new outpost will be headquartered at the Venice offices of Big Beach’s micro-budget producer Beachside, and the move will give the company…

EXCLUSIVE: Michael Mitnick has made his mark as co-writer on last year’s The Giver as well as two hot scripts currently in the works for movies: the 2011 Black List script The Current War (now at The Weinstein Company) and Pinocchio for Robert Downey Jr and Warner Bros. Now he is set to jump behind the camera for the…

EXCLUSIVE: Johnny Knoxville and Patton Oswalt have signed on to star in an untitled comedy that will be directed by Todd Rohal and financed by Marc Turtletaub and Peter Saraf’s Big Beach Films. Knoxville and Oswalt will play battling brothers who attempt to honor their ailing father by taking a troop of boys on a…

EXCLUSIVE: The Weinstein Company has closed a deal for the Paul Rudd comedy My Idiot Brother that will amount to a minimum guarantee of $6 million-$7 million, and a $15 million P&A commitment for a wide theatrical release. That makes My Idiot Brother the biggest deal of the Sundance Festival so far, but there’s an…

I’ve known Mike Sitrick for a long time. He’s a PR maven who prides himself on being a family man. Which is why he should be filled with self-loathing for allowing his firm to promote a torture porn pic like Captivity, much less an even more disgusting premiere party whose selling point was its political…