Netflix Swoops In With $50 Million Purchase of Emily Blunt, David Yates Film ‘Pain Hustlers’
variety.comBrent Lang Executive Editor of Film and MediaNetflix is wrapping up a deal for “Pain Hustlers,” a conspiracy film from David Yates that is set to star Emily Blunt.The pact, which is for global rights to the package, is said to be in the $50 million range, according to a knowledgable insider.
The sale is the biggest one so far out of Cannes, where dealmaking has been slow going. Netflix has been enduring some headaches of its own — a drop in subscribers triggered a stock sell-off, which led to layoffs and mounting skepticism about the streamer.“Pain Hustlers” boasts a script by “The True American” writer Wells Tower, the film is produced by Lawrence Grey through his Grey Matter Productions banner and Wychwood Pictures.The movie’s official logline reads: “Dreaming of a better life for her and her young daughter, Liza Drake (Blunt), a high-school dropout, lands a job with a failing pharmaceutical start-up in a yellowing strip mall in Central Florida.
Liza’s charm, guts and drive catapult the company and her into the high life, where she soon finds herself at the center of a criminal conspiracy with deadly consequences.
In the vein of ‘The Big Short,’ ‘American Hustle’ and ‘The Wolf of Wall Street,’ ‘Pain Hustlers’ is a hilarious, dramatic and wild journey to the corrupt heart of the American dream.” Well, everyone is feeling pretty great these days about the viability of that dream, so the film should find a receptive audience.
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