Nicole Kidman’s gritty Los Angeles crime thriller “Destroyer” has sold U.S. distribution rights to Annapurna Pictures, who won the Karyn Kusama film in a bidding war in Cannes.
Annapurna took the project for a mid-seven-figure price tag, an individual familiar with the sale told TheWrap.
The company beat out streaming player Amazon and other studios in the competitive situation which lasted through the night into Monday, the insider said.
Kusama is directing from a script by Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi, who all last collaborated on the unsettling 2015 indie gem “The Invitation.”
“Destroyer” has received early attention thanks to Kidman’s extreme transformation for the role, revealed by paparazzi shots from the set.
Kidman plays a police detective who “reconnects with people from an undercover assignment in her distant past in order to make peace,” an official synopsis said. The group is a cult-like gang in which Kidman’s character spent years embedded.
Sebastian Stan, Tatiana Maslany, Toby Kebbel and Bradley Whitford costar. CAA and ICM co-repped the sale. The production was financed by 30 West.
Kidman is on a serious hot streak, having appeared in in numerous high-profile films last year (“The Killing of a Sacred Deer” and “The Beguiled” among others) and winning an Emmy for HBO’s “Big Little Lies,” for which she also serves as producer.
The news was first reported by Deadline.