The Wagner/Cuban Company’s Magnolia Pictures and Madman announced today they have respectively pre-bought North American and Australia/New Zealand rights to two high profile films from TrustNordisk and Zentropa Entertainment: the just announced and hugely anticipated Lars von Trier and Martin Scorsese collaboration, THE FIVE OBSTRUCTIONS: SCORSESE VS TRIER, and the sweeping historical drama, A ROYAL AFFAIR.
Martin Scorsese subjecting himself to Lars Von Trier’s challenge was one of the biggest announcements out of Cannes this year. THE FIVE OBSTRUCTIONS: SCORSESE VS TRIER follows in the footsteps of The Five Obstructions, Trier’s landmark 2003 documentary collaboration with Jørgen Leth, wherein von Trier challenged Leth to remake his 1967 short film The Perfect Human five times, with an increasingly difficult set of strict rules, or obstructions, that he had to follow. Slated to be finished in 2013, THE FIVE OBSTRUCTIONS: SCORSESE VS TRIER is a co-production between Scorsese’s Sikelia Productions and Trier and Peter Aalbaek Jensen’s Zentropa Real.
Magnolia and Madman are distributers of Trier’s gorgeous Melancholia, which debuted with much fanfare today at Cannes, and will be released later this year.
Currently in production, A ROYAL AFFAIR is an 18th century historical drama four years in the making, starring Mads Mikkelsen and Alicia Vikander. Directed by Nikolaj Arcel, screenwriter of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, the film is an epic romance about the love triangle between a German doctor, the queen of Denmark, and her deranged king. The film was produced by Meta Louise Foldager (Melancholia) and Sisse Graum Jørgensen (In a Better World) for Zentropa Entertainments.