Sony Classics Sweet on Sugar?

By S.T. VanAirsdale

After a weird week of conspiracy theories and speculation about the potentially deal-breaking ethnicity of recent Sundance films, some good news has emerged from the local distribution front: Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden's Dominican ballplayer drama Sugar appears to have landed in Sony Pictures Classics' stable for 2008.

The deal apparently involves rights for North America and several Latin American territiories; HBO Films, which co-produced, retains TV rights. Gregg Goldstein and Steven Zeitchik have more at The Hollywood Reporter, including some of those uncomfortable cultural kinks alluded to last week:

The film caused a splash at Sundance with buyers and consumers, but given the foreign language, lack of stars and unavailability of television rights, buyers said they were less willing to pay as much as they might otherwise have paid for a buzzed-about and critically-acclaimed film.

Negotiations were also said to be complicated by the uncertainty surrounding the changing relationship between HBO Films and Picturehouse, which in the past would have been the distributor of choice for the film.

Anyway, the deal's not officially done, and there's no release date set. Check out The Reeler's Sundance '08 interview with Fleck and Boden for more about the film; we'll follow up here as more details shake out.

Posted at April 13, 2008 9:05 AM