by Mike Fleming Jr, Deadline
EXCLUSIVE: Bad Hair, one of the buzz titles at Sundance since it premiered last Thursday at The Ray, is nearing a worldwide rights deal north of $8 million with Hulu, sources said. Pic is a horror satire directed by Dear White People creator Justin Simien, and it has been chased hard by suitors I’ve heard included Lionsgate and Netflix.
It looks like Hulu will make this its second major deal of Sundance, this after the $17.5 (plus 69 cents) for Palm Springs. Hulu made that deal with Neon, and it will have to add a theatrical distributor for Bad Hair because the deal calls for a global theatrical release with a P&A spend.
Simien’s Dear White People has turned into a TV series, and he is shaping up to be a strong multicultural world creator. As for the film’s financier, Sight Unseen, this is the second big deal of the last two festivals, this after the whopping $16.5 million-plus sale of the Hugh Jackman-Allison Janney-starrer Bad Education to HBO. I’ve heard Endeavor Content is moving fast toward a closed deal before the weekend.
The film stars Elle Lorraine, Vanessa Williams, Jay Pharoah, Lena Waithe, Blair Underwood, Laverne Cox and James Van Der Beek. The horror satire is set in 1989, and an ambitious young woman gets a weave in order to succeed in the image-obsessed world of music television. However, her flourishing career may come at a great cost when she realizes that her new hair may have a mind of its own. Tress terror ensues!
Pic is produced by Julia Lebedev, Angel Lopez, Eddie Vaisman, and Simien.
Director of Photography: Topher Osborn
