EXCLUSIVE: Netflix’s big spending at the virtual EFM is continuing with a mighty worldwide pre-buy of around $55M for Christian Bale Gothic horror-thriller The Pale Blue Eye, which will reunite the actor with director Scott Cooper.
By our calculations, the deal marks a record for a worldwide deal at the European Film Market. The streamer beat out multiple competitors for the project.
The movie, which Cooper has wanted to make for more than a decade, revolves around the attempt to solve a series of murders that took place in 1830 at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Oscar-winner Bale will play a veteran detective who investigates the murders, helped by a detail-oriented young cadet who will later become a world famous author, Edgar Allan Poe.
Cooper scripts the adaptation of the Louis Bayard novel of the same name. Cross Creek, coming off the Golden Globe-winning The Trial Of The Chicago 7, is financing and producing.
Bale will produce with Cooper, Birdman producer John Lesher and Cross Creek’s Tyler Thompson. The plan is to shoot in the fall after Bale has finished up on the untitled David O Russell movie and Thor: Love And Thunder, both of which are in production.
CAA Media Finance and Endeavor Content co-repped domestic, MadRiver was aboard for international.
Cooper and Bale will be doing their third film together, after teaming on Out of the Furnace and Hostiles. Cooper most recently wrapped the Guillermo del Toro-produced horror film Antlers for Fox Searchlight, slated for fall release, and Bale, last seen in Ford v Ferrari, is filming Thor: Love and Thunder, and the untitled David O Russell film.
Cross Creek set the film as part of its multi-pic development deal with Streamline Global’s Chris Sharp, Emily Salveson and Ryan Smith.
This is Netflix’s third big acquisition of the last 10 days after we revealed their splashy deals for Operation Mincemeat and The Ice Road.
So far, they are the only known buyer to have gone above $10M during the market but we’re aware a number of the big packages have also been bought by the indie distributors so it hasn’t all been about the streamer. The market deal-making is continuing this weekend and into next week.