‘Hit Man’ Acquired by Netflix in Lucrative $20M TIFF Deal
One of the buzziest films to come out of the festival circuit has been Richard Linklater’s Hit Man, which stars Glen Powell as an undercover police officer posing as a hitman, who falls in love during his latest case with the woman who hires him to kill her abusive husband; she is played by Andor star Adria Arjona. The film first premiered in Venice, then it was finally in Toronto that it was able to land a distribution deal.
Per Deadline, companies were already lining up even before the film’s TIFF premiere last week, but CAA Media Finance, which brokered the deal with AGC Studios and Cinetic Media, wanted to wait for the reaction from the Canadian crowd (surely to boost that number). According to social media buzz (per @bigscreenleaks), it came down to Paramount and Netflix, with the latter eventually taking the prize in exchange for $20 million, the highest bid this year. AGC financed the movie, which currently holds a 98% on Rotten Tomatoes from 42 reviews.
Linklater has been mulling the story ever since he read the Texas Monthly article by Skip Hollandsworth it’s loosely based on, but couldn’t crack it until he partnered with Glen Powell, in their fourth collaboration together. Powell stars in the film and is also credited as co-writer and producer. No Netflix release date has been set for Hit Man yet, but according to Deadline, it is expected to premiere in theaters before that. It’s now scheduled to play at the New York and London Film Festivals, both in early October.
TIFF has been quiet this year in terms of big deals, aside from Netflix acquiring Anna Kendrick’s directorial debut Woman of the Hour for around $11M. Part of the reason is the ongoing strikes, which have Hollywood completely disoriented.
Both Powell and Arjona found a major boost in their careers in 2022 with the former co-starring in the second biggest movie of the year, Top Gun: Maverick, and the latter having a scene-stealing role in Disney Plus’ critical darling Andor (thankfully everyone’s forgotten about Morbius by now). Powell has another movie coming out soon, the Sydney Sweeney Sony rom-com Anyone But You, for which the duo will be making all the TMZ headlines. He’s also starring in next year’s Twisters, next to Daisy Edgar-Jones. Arjona was close to wrapping her role in Andor season 2 before the SAG-AFTRA strike as called. She will be seen in Zoë Kravitz’s directorial debut Pussy Island (a real movie name, as of today).
Miguel Fernández is a Spanish student that has movies as his second passion in life. His favorite movie of all time is The Lord of the Rings, but he is also a huge Star Wars fan. However, fantasy movies are not his only cup of tea, as authors like Scorsese, Fincher, Kubrick or Hitchcock have been an obsession for him since he started to understand the language of filmmaking. He is that guy who will watch a black and white movie, just because it is in black and white.
