Park Pictures has signed director Tom McCarthy for commercial representation. McCarthy is an Oscar-nominated writer; his filmmaking has also garnered assorted honors.
Previously known primarily for his acting (The Wire,) McCarthy burst onto the filmmaking scene in 2003 as writer/director of his debut feature, The Station Agent, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, where it received the Audience Award and the prestigious Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award. Additional recognition came from the BAFTA Awards, the Independent Spirit Awards and the Writers Guild Awards, among others.
McCarthy’s next feature The Visitor premiered in 2007 to similar acclaim, winning the award for Best Screenplay from the San Diego Film Critics Society, the Satellite Award for Best Screenplay and the Independent Spirit Award for Best Direction.
After receiving a 2009 Oscar nomination for the screenplay for the Disney Pixar animated feature UP, co-written with Pete Docter and Bob Peterson, McCarthy went on to write and direct the 2011 dramedy Win Win, which won the Humanitas Prize that year for film and television writers whose work explores the human condition in a nuanced, meaningful way. A Fox Searchlight release, Win Win starred Paul Giamatti and Amy Ryan, and went on to be nominated for Best Original Screenplay by the WGA Awards and the Independent Spirit Awards.
In addition to his writing and directing, McCarthy continues his career as an actor with credits in such films as Flags of Our Fathers, Syriana, All the King’s Men, Duplicity and The Lovely Bones. He was also featured on the final season of the hit HBO drama series The Wire.
McCarthy has an ongoing overhead, development and production deal with Odd Lot Entertainment.
Netflix Series “The Leopard” Spots Classic Italian Novel, Remakes It As A Sumptuous Period Drama
"The Leopard," a new Netflix series, takes the classic Italian novel by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa and transforms it into a sumptuous period piece showing the struggles of the aristocracy in 19th-century Sicily, during tumultuous social upheavals as their way of life is crumbling around them.
Tom Shankland, who directs four of the eight episodes, had the courage to attempt his own version of what is one of the most popular films in Italian history. The 1963 movie "The Leopard," directed by Luchino Visconti, starring Burt Lancaster, Alain Delon and Claudia Cardinale, won the Palme d'Or in Cannes.
One Italian critic said that it would be the equivalent of a director in the United States taking "Gone with the Wind" and turning it into a series, but Shankland wasn't the least bit intimidated.
He said that he didn't think of anything other than his own passion for the project, which grew out of his love of the book. His father was a university professor of Italian literature in England, and as a child, he loved the book and traveling to Sicily with his family.
The book tells the story of Don Fabrizio Corbera, the Prince of Salina, a tall, handsome, wealthy aristocrat who owns palaces and land across Sicily.
His comfortable world is shaken with the invasion of Sicily in 1860 by Giuseppe Garibaldi, who was to overthrow the Bourbon king in Naples and bring about the Unification of Italy.
The prince's family leads an opulent life in their magnificent palaces with servants and peasants kowtowing to their every need. They spend their time at opulent banquets and lavish balls with their fellow aristocrats.
Shankland has made the series into a visual feast with tables heaped with food, elaborate gardens and sensuous costumes.... Read More