Latest in Sidney Kimmel

EXCLUSIVE: Amazon Studios is negotiating to finance and distribute the next film by Jennifer Kent, the Australian filmmaker who followed the sleeper horror hit The Babadook with the shocking period revenge tale The Nightingale, which was part of last year’s Toronto Film Festival. Kent will write and direct an…

EXCLUSIVE: Sidney Kimmel Entertainment will finance and produce Picking Cotton, and the company has set Jessica Sanders to direct a David Birke & Tony Mosher-scripted adaptation of the bestselling memoir by Ronald Cotton, Jennifer Thompson and Erin Torneo. Sidney Kimmel, SKE president John Penotti and Sanders will…

EXCLUSIVE: Sidney Kimmel Entertainment just picked up the option on Gary Lennon’s play Change for producer William Horberg (The Talented Mr. Ripley, Cold Mountain, Milk). Lennon, who currently serves as executive producer and writer on Starz’s No. 1 rated series’ Power, is not only a writer, a Peabody and PGA winner…

Sidney Kimmel Entertainment has hired Mark O'Connor as EVP Production, bringing over the veteran from his previous post as a senior exec at Todd Phillips’ Warner Bros-based Green Hat Films. The former CAA agent, whose career includes stints at Lorne Michaels' Broadway Video, 20th Century Fox and Scott Rudin…

EXCLUSIVE: Jeff Bridges has signed to star in David Mackenzie’s Comancheria, with Chris Pine and Ben Foster in talks to board the project. Sidney Kimmel is financing and produces alongside Film 44 and Julie Yorn. The script was penned by actor Taylor Sheridan, who played a cop on Sons of Anarchy. Now that the…

Sidney Kimmel Entertainment will finance and produce the dramedy from first-time feature helmer Thea Sharrock. Legacy, based on a spec script by novelist-screenwriter Gregg Hurwitz, centers on a single mom whose 12-year-old son talks her into committing the perfect crime. SKE's Sidney Kimmel and Matt Berenson will…

EXCLUSIVE: There has been much speculation over whether Jennifer Lopez will return for another season as judge on American Idol. Adding to the intrigue: she is in talks to star in not one, but two feature films. I’m told that Lopez is in discussions to play the female lead opposite Jason Statham in Parker, the Taylor H…

EXCLUSIVE: FilmDistrict is closing a deal for U.S. distribution rights to Parker, the Taylor Hackford-directed thriller that will star Jason Statham. Production starts in early August. The John J. McLaughlin-scripted film is an adaptation of the Donald E. Westlake novel series, and Statham is playing a character that M…

The 2011 Cannes Film Festival doesn’t get under way until next week, but the market is already getting busy. Sierra/Affinity, which will be handling such titles as the Gavin Hood-directed adaptation of Ender’s Game, has bolstered its sales force by hiring Jonathan Kier as exec veep of sales. Kier was senior veep of…

Sidney Kimmel, the schmatta magnate who verged on quitting the movie biz after making a bunch of good indie films that flopped, seems reinvigorated with a new strategy: make every film possible with Katherine Heigl. Kimmel has joined forces with Lakeshore Entertainment on Adaline, an “epic romance” that will star…