Fox Searchlight picks up Steve McQueen's NC-17 drama SHAME

Fox Searchlight has picked up Steve McQueen's NC-17 drama Shame. Deadline reports that this is one of the first deals made during this years Toronto Film Festival. Both Searchlight and The Weinstein Company were involved in bidding on this film that is said to be a powerful performance by Michael Fassbender, who plays "a New Yorker unable to manage his sex life when his wayward younger sister (Carey Mulligan) moves in to his apartment, and his world spirals out of control."

This is great news for this controversial film, which "is unabashedly NC-17, features graphic sex scenes and nudity, and McQueen has final cut and will not change a frame." The deal also will call for a late-year release and Best Actor campaign for Fassbender; Searchlight will already be waging a campaign in the same category for George Clooney in the Alexander Payne-directed The Descendants.

For more information read the official press release:

TORONTO, Ontario, Canada September 9, 2011 – Fox Searchlight Pictures Presidents Nancy Utley and Stephen Gilula announced today that the company has acquired U. S. rights to the intimate and provocative drama SHAME.  The film is directed by Steve McQueen, written by McQueen and Abi Morgan and stars Michael Fassbender and Carey Mulligan.  SHAME is a See-Saw Films production for Film4 and U.K. Film Council and produced by Iain Canning and Emile Sherman.  Tessa Ross, Robert Walak, Peter Hampden and Tim Haslam are executive producers with Bergen Swanson as co-producer.  HanWay Films is handling international sales.  The film is scheduled to be released in 2011.
“Steve McQueen’s courageous exploration of modern life’s extremes is breathtaking.  He has crafted an extraordinary film that probes some of the deepest and darkest issues ever portrayed on screen with amazingly gifted performances by Michael Fassbender and Carey Mulligan,” said Gilula and Utley.
“Fox Searchlight contacted us immediately after the screening in Telluride to tell us how much they loved the film. Their approach to marketing and distributing the film this year was incredibly detailed and impressive. We are excited to be working with them on a film that is sparking debate and a strong emotional reaction from audiences,” said Canning and Sherman.
“This is a brave statement and an important move by Fox Searchlight.   I am very happy they came on board to release Shame in the U.S.  It’s great to be working with a team that is so passionate about cinema,” said McQueen.
Brandon (Michael Fassbender) is a New Yorker who shuns intimacy with women but feeds his desires with a compulsive addiction to sex. When his wayward younger sister (Carey Mulligan) moves into his apartment stirring memories of their shared painful past, Brandon’s insular life spirals out of control.
The deal was brokered by Fox Searchlight’s Executive Vice President of Worldwide Acquisitions Tony Safford, Senior Vice President of Business Affairs Megan O’Brien, Vice President of Acquisitions Ray Strache with Thorsten Schumacher and Claire Taylor of HanWay Films on behalf of the filmmakers.
Fox Searchlight Pictures is a specialty film company that both finances and acquires motion pictures.  It has its own marketing and distribution operations, and its films are distributed internationally by Twentieth Century Fox.  Fox Searchlight Pictures is a unit of Fox Filmed Entertainment, a unit of Fox Entertainment Group.