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Searchlight Pictures has signed a first-look deal with Olivia Colman and Ed Sinclair’s South of the River Pictures. Under the new pact, the specialty studio, which has worked with Colman on “The Favourite” and “Empire of Light,” will develop and produce feature-length motion pictures with the production company.

South of the River Pictures was founded by Colman, Sinclair and their long-time partner in crime, Tom Carver, to develop and produce original scripted comedies and dramas with “an authored sensibility.” Colman and Sinclair have been married since 2001.

South of the River Pictures has a slate of projects that include feature films and TV series. Its first production was Sinclair’s multi-Bafta-winning TV series “Landscapers,” which was produced with Sister for Sky Atlantic and HBO, and starred Olivia Colman and David Thewlis as a murderous couple. It was nominated for best miniseries at the 2022 BAFTA TV Awards. “Wicked Little Letters,” the company’s first feature film,...

Searchlight Pictures has acquired worldwide rights to Legendary Entertainment’s thriller Fresh, starring Daisy Edgar-Jones (Normal People) and Sebastian Stan (Pam & Tommy), ahead of its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival slated for next week. The first feature from director Mimi Cave will stream exclusively across Disney’s platforms, debuting on Hulu in the U.S. on March 4, with a Latin American premiere on Star+ and a Disney+ unveiling in all other territories to take later this spring.

Fresh follows Noa (Edgar-Jones), who meets the alluring Steve (Stan) at a grocery store and—given her frustration with dating apps—takes a chance and gives him her number. After their first date, Noa is smitten and accepts Steve’s invitation to a romantic weekend getaway, only to find that her new paramour has been hiding some unusual appetites.

Jojo T. Gibbs (Twenties), Charlotte Le Bon (The Hundred-Foot Journey), Andrea Bang...

Searchlight Pictures has snapped up E. Nicholas Mariani’s 2018 Black List script The Defender, which George Tillman Jr. will direct with three-time Emmy-winning actor Sterling K. Brown to star as heroic lawyer Scipio Africanus Jones.

Jones was a courageous attorney who risked his life and career to defend 87 men wrongfully accused of murder in the wake of the Elaine, Ar massacre of 1919, when a group of Black sharecroppers meeting in a church about unionization were attacked by a posse organized by white landowners.

Brown will produce with 21 Laps’ Shawn Levy and Dan Cohen. Mariani and Danielle Reardon will executive produce with Dantram Nguyen, Katie Goodson-Thomas and Richard Ruiz overseeing for Searchlight. Ben Wilkinson, VP Business Affairs and Legal Counsel, negotiated the deal for Searchlight along with WME and CAA on behalf of filmmakers.

Tillman Jr. produced and directed the movie The Hate U Give for Fox 2000 Pictures, based on Angela Thomas’ novel.

As Deadline first reported during Sundance, Searchlight has taken global rights to David Bruckner’s psychological thriller The Night House. A theatrical release is being planned for this year. The rights deal is in the neighborhood of $12M and continues the specialty’s label move into the genre space following its recent late summer success with Ready or Not which made $57.6M WW, and the upcoming Scott Cooper horror pic Antlers on April 17.

Based on an original screenplay by Ben Collins & Luke Piotrowski, The Night House follows a widow (Rebecca Hall) who begins to uncover her recently deceased husband’s disturbing secrets. Pic was financed and produced by Sébastien Raybaud’s company, Anton. David Goyer’s Phantom Four developed the script, and also produced. Producers are Phantom Four’s David Goyer and Keith Levine, and Anton’s John Zois. EPs are Bruckner, François Callens, Ben Collins, Hall, George Paaswell, Luke Piotrowski,...