Warner Bros. has brokered one of the first major deals at American Film Market, acquiring the North American rights to “We Are Your Friends,” starring Zac Efron, Emily Ratajkowski and Wes Bentley.
This marks director Max Joseph’s first feature after a long stint of hosting MTV’s reality series “Catfish: The TV Show.” Working Title Films produced the film with financier Studiocanal also handling international sales and distribution in France, U.K., Germany, Australia and New Zealand.
Greg Silverman, president of Warner Bros. creative development and worldwide production, and Sue Kroll, president of worldwide marketing and international distribution, made the announcement on Wednesday.
“We are so thrilled to finally be in business with Working Title, and know this is the beginning of a great relationship,” Silverman said. “The same can be said for Max, a wonderful new voice who will, hopefully, make many movies here. It is also thrilling to have our dear friend Zac back, as well as Emily, who will appear in ‘Entourage,’ and Wes, who is so wonderful in ‘Interstellar.’”
“The breadth and depth of our slate allows us to proudly bring features from every genre, scope and scale to our audiences, and we are delighted to have the opportunity to usher in Max Joseph’s fresh, raw image of a love story set in today’s modern-day music scene,” Kroll said.
“We Are Your Friends” explores the electronic music scene in Hollywood and features the friendship formed between an aspiring DJ named Cole (played by Efron) and an older musician named James (played by Bentley.) Things get complicated, however, when Cole starts falling for James’ much younger girlfriend, Sophie, played by Ratajkowski.
Joseph and Meaghan Oppenheimer co-wrote the script based on a story by Richard Silverman.
Tim Bevan, Liza Chasin and Eric Fellner are producing, with Silverman executive producing and Johanna Byer serving as co-producer.