Fox Searchlight Pictures presidents Nancy Utley and Stephen Gilula announced that the company has acquired worldwide distribution and remake rights to director and producer Amanda Lipitz’s inspiring documentary Step, featuring Blessin Giraldo, Cori Grainger, Tayla Solomon, Gari McIntyre and Paula Dofat. The film is a Stick Figure, Impact Partners, Vulcan and Scott Rudin production and produced by Lipitz and Steven Cantor with Dan Cogan, Geralyn Dreyfous, Jenny Raskin, Scott Rudin, Paul G. Allen, Carole Tomko, Micheal Flaherty, Valerie McGowan, Barbara Dobkin, Regina K. Scully, Debra McLeod, Jay Sears, Ann Tisch and Andrew Tisch serving as executive producers. Step will be released in 2017.
“This film was made as a tribute to the bravery and conviction of the young women in the film and to the courage they demonstrated in their willingness to share their story. We are thrilled to partner with Fox Searchlight on the release of the film throughout the world and are very grateful for their enthusiasm and passion. We hope that the heroes of Step will inspire girls everywhere to do what they have done, which is to prove that nothing is impossible when you surround yourself with a group of powerful women,” said Lipitz.
Step documents the senior year of a girls’ high-school step dance team against the background of inner-city Baltimore. As each one tries to become the first in their families to attend college, the girls strive to make their dancing a success against the backdrop of social unrest in the troubled city.
The production also received generous support from Bloomberg Philanthropies and the Baltimore Ravens. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival to sold out screenings with show-stopping performances by the team, who were greatly supported by the local Park City community.
The deal was brokered by Fox Searchlight’s EVP of business affairs Megan O’Brien and SVP of acquisitions & co-productions Ray Strache, with WME Global 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 21st Century Fox.
Is “Glicked” The New “Barbenheimer”? “Wicked” and “Gladiator II” Hit Theater Screens
"Barbenheimer" was a phenomenon impossible to manufacture. But, more than a year later, that hasn't stopped people from trying to make "Glicked" — or even "Babyratu" — happen.
The counterprogramming of "Barbie" and "Oppenheimer" in July 2023 hit a nerve culturally and had the receipts to back it up. Unlike so many things that begin as memes, it transcended its online beginnings. Instead of an either-or, the two movies ultimately complemented and boosted one another at the box office.
And ever since, moviegoers, marketers and meme makers have been trying to recreate that moment, searching the movie release schedule for odd mashups and sending candidates off into the social media void. Most attempts have fizzled (sorry, "Saw Patrol" ).
This weekend is perhaps the closest approximation yet as the Broadway musical adaptation "Wicked" opens Friday against the chest-thumping sword-and-sandals epic "Gladiator II." Two big studio releases (Universal and Paramount), with one-name titles, opposite tones and aesthetics and big blockbuster energy — it was already halfway there before the name game began: "Wickiator," "Wadiator," "Gladwick" and even the eyebrow raising "Gladicked" have all been suggested.
"'Glicked' rolls off the tongue a little bit more," actor Fred Hechinger said at the New York screening of "Gladiator II" this week. "I think we should all band around 'Glicked.' It gets too confusing if you have four or five different names for it."
As with "Barbenheimer," as reductive as it might seem, "Glicked" also has the male/female divide that make the fan art extra silly. One is pink and bright and awash in sparkles, tulle, Broadway bangers and brand tie-ins; The other is all sweat and sand, blood and bulging... Read More