Michael-Pitt-and-Astrid-Bergès-Frisbey-in-I-OriginsAfter making his narrative feature directorial debut at Sundance three years ago with the brilliant Another Earth, Mike Cahill has returned to Park City for his sophomore follow-up, I Origins.

The film has opened to positive early buzz amongst festivalgoers, and it’s now officially amongst the early acquisitions. Fox Searchlight has announced that it has acquired worldwide rights to the existential drama, with Deadline hearing that the deal impressively closed around the $3m. mark.

Ian Gray, a PhD student studying molecular biology with a specialty in eye evolution, leaves his lab to go to a party and has an intense, but fleeting, encounter with a mysterious, masked model who escapes into the night. With only a picture of her stunning and iconic eyes, he tracks her down, and they fall in love. Their fundamentally different beliefs about life only serve to intensify their connection, and they vow to spend forever together. Years later, Ian and his lab partner, Karen, make a stunning discovery with profound existential implications. He must risk his life’s work and his family to travel across the world to find the truth behind what he has found and what it may mean.

Cahill reunites with his Another Earth star and co-writer Brit Marling, with Michael Pitt leading the cast alongside Marling, Astrid Bergès-Frisbey, Steven Yeun, and Archie Panjabi.

Cahill wrote the film solo this time around, and also produced it with Hunter Gray (Another Earth, Half Nelson) and Alex Orlovsky (The Place Beyond the Pines, Blue Valentine).

Fox Searchlight previously bought worldwide rights to Cahill’s Another Earth, so it’s nice to see him returning to the studio’s independent arm for his sophomore narrative film.

No word yet on a specific release date, but the press release below notes that the film will be released in 2014, and hopefully we won’t have too long to wait.

 

PARK CITY, UT January 20, 2014 – Fox Searchlight Pictures Presidents Stephen Gilula and Nancy Utley announced today that the company has acquired worldwide rights to the existential drama I ORIGINS. Directed and written by Mike Cahill, I ORIGINS is his second feature following ANOTHER EARTH which Fox Searchlight acquired at Sundance in 2011. The film stars Michael Pitt, Brit Marling, Astrid Bergès-Frisbey, Steven Yeun and Archie Panjabi with Cahill, Hunter Gray and Alex Orlovsky serving as producers. The film is scheduled to be released in 2014.

“Mike Cahill’s impressive second feature makes you question our very place in the universe by merging the scientific and emotional worlds in a deeply affecting way,” said Utley and Gilula. “The film boasts a superb cast led by Michael Pitt, and it is great to be reunited with Mike and Brit.”

“I am so excited to once again be home at Fox Searchlight, a place that I believe embraces creative passion and the future of cinematic storytelling,” said Cahill.

“I ORIGINS is a very special film for us at Verisimilitude. We know that Fox Searchlight is the perfect home for Mike’s innovative and utterly original work,” said Gray and Orlovsky.

Written and directed by Mike Cahill, and starring Michael Pitt, Brit Marling, and Astrid Bergès-Frisbey, I ORIGINS follows a molecular biologist whose study of the human eye points to evidence with far reaching implications about our scientific and spiritual beliefs.

The deal was brokered by Fox Searchlight’s Executive Vice President of Worldwide Acquisitions Tony Safford, Senior Vice President of Business Affairs Megan O’Brien and Vice President of Acquisitions & Co-Productions Ray Strache with WME Global and Andre des Rochers on behalf of the film and Shelley Surpin on behalf of the director. I ORIGINS is a Verisimilitude / WeWork Studios Production.

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 20th Century Fox Film.