Sundance Sales: Fox Splashes $10 Million On Steve Carell's 'The Way, Way Back'

There’ve been big sales all over the place at the Sundance Film Festival again this year, with Steve Carell among the names benefiting from the latest deal – said to be one of the most expensive in Sundance history. The past couple of days have been abuzz with news of Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s directorial effort Don’s Jon Addiction being bought for $4 million, whilst the Steve Coogan/Michael Winterbottom partnership has worked out again with the story of Soho Porn King Paul Raymond, ‘The Look Of Love’, also being snapped up.

However, this deal shades them all: The Way, Way Back, directed by Nat Flaxon and Jim Rash and starring Liam James and Sam Rockwell as well as Carell, has been snapped up for a whopping $10 million. The buyers are Fox Searchlight, with the deal supposedly among the biggest the event’s ever seen. The narrative follows James as a 14 year-old boy spending a miserable summer in a town in Massachusetts, as his mother - played by Toni Collette – has started dating Carell’s character. He becomes friends with Rockwell’s character, however, who has a decrepit water park.

Among Fox Searchlights distributed titles, according to The Los Angeles Times, are The Descendants and Little Miss Sunshine - two films that The Way, Way Back would certainly be in good company with.