Thursday, January 25----Deals are coming fast and furious as the Sundance Film Festival enters its final weekend. While some acquisition execs will be waiting to see what American and international titles win jury and audience awards, the activity has been brisk with more deals announced in the past 48 hours of various films that have world premiered at the Festival.

ONCE, a tender Irish romantic musical comedy by John Carney, has sold worldwide rights to sales company Summit Entertainment. One of the most active international sellers in the business, Summit will negotiate worldwide deals on the title (outside of Ireland). The film, which was repped by Dublin-based production shingle Samson Films, is also expected to announce a US theatrical deal later this week.

DEDICATION, the directorial debut of actor Justin Theroux, has been picked up in a joint distribution deal between First Look Pictures and The Weinstein Company (with First Look getting North American rights and the Weinsteins the rest of the world). The romantic comedy about a misanthropic author of a hit children's book series (played to saucy perfection by Billy Crudup) is forced to collaborate with a beautiful illustrator (rising star Mandy Moore).

The film is the second pick-up this week by The Weinstein Company from New York-based Plum Pictures. GRACE IS GONE, a wrenching drama of the effect of the Iraq War on the homefront, with an award-worthy performance by John Cusack, was picked up earlier this week.

Finally, Magnolia Pictures, a division of Mark Cuban's 2929 Entertainment, announced a seven-figure pick up deal for all English language rights for THE SIGNAL, "an apocalyptic horror film" that screened in the Midnight Section of the Festival. Co-directed by the trio of David Bruckner, Dan Bush and Jacob Gentry, this is Magnolia's second major pick-up this week; the first being Dan Klore's documentary crowd-pleaser CRAZY LOVE.

With a few more days remaining, the pressure is on for such high profile end-of-Festival pics as CHAPTER 27 (a dramatization of the shooting of John Lennon), KING OF CALIFORNIA (a road movie starring Michael Douglas and Evan Rachel Wood) and US Dramatic Competition frontrunner ROCKET SCIENCE.

Sandy Mandelberger
Sundance Online Dailies