Sundance favorite attracts high bid

In the largest sale to date at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, United Artists bid $3.5 million to secure worldwide rights to “Pieces of April.”

The drama, a festival favorite, stars Katie Holmes as a black-sheep daughter who tries to prepare a Thanksgiving feast in her New York tenement for the rest of her dysfunctional family. The film was written and directed by Peter Hedges and co-stars Patricia Clarkson and Oliver Platt as April’s parents and Derek Luke as her boyfriend.

Bingham Ray, president of United Artists, the specialty film branch of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, said he bid against “just about everyone who has the resources to release films in the world.”

In previous years, studios have paid up to $10 million for a film at Sundance. Last year Miramax paid more than $5 million for “Tadpole,” which grossed only $2.8 million at the box office.

“Perhaps people came in from last year’s experience and resolved not to go bonkers and lose all sense and reason,” Ray said. “But when you find something you really like and you think you know will work, then you have to go for it.”

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Lynn Smith