12/05/2011

Ealing Metro International and Prescience, who financed Oscar winner The King's Speech [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Tom Hooper
film profile], announced today from the Cannes Market that they will be financing and handling worldwide sales on Michael Winterbottom’s new comedy, Bailout (working title).

The film will star Jack Black (Gulliver’s Travels) with additional cast to be announced shortly. Jess Walter will adapt the script from his own novel The Financial Lives of the Poets.

The film follows the fortunes of Matt Prior (Black) who wakes up to find himself jobless, crippled with debt, convinced his wife is having an affair and two weeks away from losing his home. A solution comes in the form of two losers he meets late one night at his local supermarket who offer him a bizarre but interesting business opportunity.

Michael Besman, (About Schmidt), Melissa Parmenter (9 Songs), Black, Ben Cooley and Priyanka Mattoo for Ealing Metro will produce.

Winterbottom said, “Jess Walter is an extremely talented writer. Bailout is a very funny account of one man caught up in his own financial crisis – a rare feat of being funny and true at the same time.”

Will Machin, head of Ealing Metro, said, “We are delighted to be involved with Bailout, which will mark the first new project for Ealing Metro after the recent merger of Ealing and Metropolis/Prescience’s respective sales operations. With an A-list star and director of the calibre of Michael Winterbottom, Bailout is exactly the type of commercial, mainstream independent project we are looking for that will appeal to a worldwide audience. We are looking forward to introducing buyers to the project in Cannes.”