Oscar winners Octavia Spencer, Sam Rockwell, and Allison Janney are starring in the independent comedy “The Heart” with shooting beginning at the end of the year.
Nat Faxon and Jim Rash will direct from their own script. Kevin Walsh and Ryan Stowell are producing the film through the Walsh Company banner.
Sierra/Affinity is launching international sales at the 2019 European Film Market at the Berlin Film Festival next month.
“We are very excited to bring ‘The Heart’ to the international market not only because we know it is a film with mass appeal, but also since it allows us to collaborate with our longtime friends Nat, Jim, Kevin, and Ryan,” said Jonathan Kier, Sierra/Affinity’s president of sales and distribution. “Having worked with Nat and Jim on ‘The Way Way Back’ and both producers on ‘Manchester by the Sea,’ we have first-hand experience of how they all can brilliantly create an amazing film.”
Rockwell and Spencer portray people who are desperate for cash and take the job of delivering a human heart from New York to Florida in 24 hours. When they realize that their delivery is destined for a black-market buyer who illegally skipped the donor list, they attempt to reroute the heart to its rightful recipient, but are soon hunted down by criminals — including the millionaire buyer and the drug-dealing ex-boss of Spencer’s character, played by Janney.
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Faxon and Rash are currently in production on “Downhill,” an adaptation of the 2014 Swedish film “Force Majeure,” centered on a family barely escaping an avalanche during a ski vacation in the Alps. This version, for Fox Searchlight, will star Will Ferrell and Julia Louis-Dreyfus.
Faxon, Rash, and Alexander Payne won an adapted screenplay Oscar for Searchlight’s “The Descendants.” Spencer won a supporting actress Oscar for “The Help” and Janney won the same category last year for “I, Tonya.” Rockwell won the supporting actor category last year for “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” and is nominated this year in the category for “Vice.”
Faxon is represented by CAA, Artists First, and Stone, Genow, Smelkinson, Binder & Christopher. Rash is represented by CAA, Atlas Artists, and Stone, Genow, Smelkinson, Binder & Christopher. Rockwell is represented by Gersh and Untitled Entertainment. Spencer is represented by WME and Jackoway Austen Tyerman. Janney is represented by Gersh, Thruline Entertainment, and Nelson Davis.