Latest in Michael Barker

Only once has the winner of the top prize in Cannes ever matched the winner of the Oscar for Best Picture. 1955’s Marty won both, but no film has been able to duplicate that feat in the more than a half-century since.  But now Michael Haneke‘s Amour, nominated for five Oscars including Best Picture and also winner of…

BREAKING: This hardly qualifies as a cliffhanger, but Sony Pictures Classics has formalized a deal for North American rights to Blue Jasmine, the next film written and directed by Woody Allen. SPC partners Michael Barker and Tom Bernard make this their sixth picture and fourth in a row with The Woodman. That includes F…

With 5 new movies screening just on Saturday alone with many of their stars and filmmakers in tow, co-presidents Michael Barker and Tom Bernard of Sony Pictures Classics are dominating much of the conversation and eyeballs at the 39th Telluride Film Festival. Playing today were SPC’s Cannes sensations Rust & Bone…

Here’s a head start on the upcoming weekend’s specialty releases. Sony Classics’ Michael Barker gives Deadline an inside snapshot of the distributor’s long ties to Polish director Agnieszka Holland and her latest Polish Holocaust feature In Darkness, based on a true story. Return director Liza Johnson offers her…

EXCLUSIVE: I’m told that Sony Pictures Classics is near a deal to distribute Hysteria, the Tanya Wexler-directed romantic comedy based on the surprising truth of how Mortimer Granville came up with the world’s first electro-mechanical vibrator as an advance in medical science. The film created a — wait for it — buzz…

The 9/11 anniversary was a strong memory in Toronto because it happened right in the middle of 2001’s film festiva — even though it was business as usual today. In fact the pace of this place just seems to be quickening. Deals, as Deadline’s Mike Fleming reports, were slow to percolate but may be picking up. Most…

The 2011 Toronto International Film Festival has filled out the rest of its slate, which consists of 268 features and 68 short films that will unspool next month. The fest announced that the likes of Brad Pitt (Moneyball), George Clooney (The Ides of March), and U2 (the Davis Guggenheim-directed docu From The Sky…

Deadline told you last week that Sony Pictures Classics was wrapping up distribution on Roman Polanski’s adaptation of the Broadway hit God of Carnage. They’ve just announced the deal for the movie, with the abbreviated title Carnage: NEW YORK (April 14, 2011) – Sony Pictures Classics announced today that they will…

EXCLUSIVE: I'm told that Sony Pictures Classics partners Michael Barker and Tom Bernard are tying up a deal to acquire US rights to God Of Carnage, the  Roman Polanski-directed feature adaptation of Yasmina Reza’s Tony-winning play. Polanski shot the film in Paris, with Jodie Foster, Kate Winslet, Christoph Waltz and J…

NEW YORK (February 15, 2011) – Sony Pictures Classics announced today that they have acquired all US rights to Academy Award® nominee Agnieszka Holland's IN DARKNESS from sales agent Beta Cinema. The film, based on the true story "In the Sewers of lvov" by Robert Marshall, is written by David F. Shamoon and stars…

While there has been a high level of suspense over the acquisitions of pictures shown at Toronto, this wasn’t exactly a cliffhanger. Because it marks the 10th collaboration between Pedro Almodovar and Sony Pictures Classics’ Michael Barker and Tom Bernard who acquired North American rights to his new film The Skin That…