MadRiver Pictures announced today that Sara Colangelo (The Kindergarten Teacher, Little Accidents) will direct the true-life biographical drama, What Is Life Worth, and joining Academy Award® nominee Michael Keaton (Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance), Spotlight) is Academy Award® nominee Stanley Tucci (A Private War, Spotlight, The Lovely Bones). Academy Award® winning producer Michael Sugar (Spotlight) will produce alongside MadRiver Pictures Marc Butan, Sean Sorensen, Max Borenstein, Bard Dorros and Keaton. Kim Fox will executive produce along with Riverstone’s Nik Bower and Deepak Nayar. Riverstone and Ingenious are financing, with Peter Touche and Andrea Scarso executive producing. IMR International is handling worldwide sales. Principal Photography will begin in New York in April.
Colangelo directed the acclaimed feature, The Kindergarten Teacher, starring Maggie Gyllenhaal which made its debut at the Sundance Film Festival in 2018, where Netflix acquired and subsequently released on October 12. At Sundance, Colangelo won best director and the film was the runner up for the Grand Jury Prize. Previously, Colangelo wrote and directed, Little Accidents starring Boyd Holbrook, which earned an Independent Spirit Award nomination for ‘Best First Screenplay.’
Tucci can currently be seen in A Private War starring Rosamund Pike and Jamie Dornan. His other film credits include The Hunger Gamesfilms series, Academy Award® winning film Spotlight, and The Lovely Bones, for which he received a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination. Based on the acclaimed memoir by Kenneth Feinberg, the Black List script is penned by Max Borenstein. What Is Life Worth is an Erin Brockovich/Spotlight-type story of Ken Feinberg, a powerful insider D.C. lawyer put in charge of the 9/11 Fund, who in almost 3 years of pro bono work on the case, fights off the cynicism, bureaucracy and politics associated with administering government funds to victim’s families and in doing so, discovers what life is worth.
IMR’s The Report recently sold in an eight-figure Sundance deal with Amazon. The slate also includes the recently announced Black Flieswith Mel Gibson and Tye Sheridan; Guy Ritchie’s next film Bush; Ruin with Margot Robbie and Matthias Schoenarts; King of The Jungle with Seth Rogen and Michael Keaton; and John Michael McDonough’s The Forgiven starring Ralph Fiennes. The MadRiver production slate also includes James Gray’s Ad Astra starring Brad Pitt for Fox and New Regency.
Colangelo is repped by WME, MGMT Entertainment and Frankfurt, Kurnit, Klein & Selz. Tucci is repped by CAA, Curtis Brown Group and Anonymous Content. Keaton is repped by ICM and Ziffren Brittenham.