Three-time Academy Award-nominee Michelle Pfeiffer is set to star in writer/director Peter Craig’s (The Batman, and recently worked on Top Gun: Maverick) Wild Four O’Clocks, it was announced today by Protagonist Pictures CEO Dave Bishop. Protagonist are handling international sales on the hot project and will introduce to buyers at the upcoming Marche du Film. CAA Media Finance is handling domestic sales for the film.
The highly anticipated title is the directorial debut for Craig, who wrote Warner Bros. critically acclaimed The Batman, starring Robert Pattinson and worked on Paramount’s upcoming Top Gun: Maverick starring Tom Cruise, which will have its world premiere at the upcoming Cannes Film Festival.
Three-time Academy Award-nominee Marc Platt (La La Land, The Trial of the Chicago 7, Bridge of Spies) and Emmy Award-winner Adam Siegel (“Oslo,” Drive, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World) are producing.
In Wild Four O’Clocks, after their father is sent to prison, two young brothers are placed in the care of their estranged grandmother, a vibrant and larger-than-life woman who will quickly have to learn how to care for the heartbroken yet strong-willed boys.
“Launching Craig’s directorial debut, which is an uplifting and universal tale of family bonding told through the eyes of a child, in the great tradition of American story-telling, is a huge honor,” said Head of sales Janina Vilsmaier. “Michelle’s magnetism and deeply nuanced performance style makes her the perfect choice to lead this heart-warming and inspiring drama.”
Craig is one of the industry’s most in demand writers, with additional credits including The Town starring Ben Affleck, Jon Hamm and Blake Lively, Nora Fingscheidt’s The Unforgivable, starring Sandra Bullock and The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Parts 1 &2. He is also set to write the upcoming sequel to Ridley Scott’s Academy Award®-winning film Gladiator. Craig is represented by CAA, Grandview, and attorney Don Steele.
Academy Award® nominee Pfeiffer’s credits include Dangerous Liaisons, Scarface, The Fabulous Baker Boys, Love Field, Batman Returns, The Age of Innocence, and What Lies Beneath. In recent years, she has appeared in Marvel’s Antman, Sony Classics French Exit, Kenneth Branagh’s Murder on the Orient Express and Disney’s Maleficent: Mistress of Evil. She is repped by CAA, Management 360, and attorney Barry Hirsch.
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ABOUT PROTAGONIST PICTURES
Protagonist Pictures is an international sales, finance, and production company with a proven track record in outstanding films and commercial successes. Based in the UK, the company handles films from around the world, always maintaining a strong focus on filmmakers with exceptional vision and storytelling skills.
Current sales titles include Phyllis Nagy's Call Jane, starring Elizabeth Banks and Sigourney Weaver, which premiered in Sundance and Berlin in 2022, Rebecca Miller’s She Came to Me, starring Anne Hathaway, Marisa Tomei and Joanna Kulig, the underwater thriller The Dive by Maximilian Erlenwein, BAFTA Award-winning writer-director Mark Jenkin’s highly anticipated psychological-horror Enys Men, which will have its worldwide premiere in Director’s Fortnight, and War Pony, the directorial debut from Riley Keough and Gina Gammell, that will have its worldwide premiere in Un Certain Regard.
Other titles include Penelope Cruz and Antonio Banderas starrer Official Competition, by directing duo Mariano Cohn and Gastón Duprat, which premiered in Venice in 2021, the 2021 Nordic supernatural thriller The Innocents which premiered in Cannes at Un Certain Regard, Censor, the opening night film of the Midnight section at Sundance 2021, directed by Prano Bailey-Bond and starring Niamh Algar – both Screen International 2018 Stars of Tomorrow alumni, Ben Wheatley’s In The Earth, starring Joel Fry, Ellora Torchia, Hayley Squires, and Reece Shearsmith – also a Sundance 2021 title, Limbo, directed by Ben Sharrock and starring Amir El-Masry, Saint Maud, from Screen’s 2018 Stars of Tomorrow writer/director Rose Glass and starring Morfydd Clark and Jennifer Ehle, Sound of Metal, directed by Darius Marder, starring Riz Ahmed and Olivia Cooke.
