Senator Takes “The Greatest”

A scene from Shana Fest's "The Greatest". Image courtesy of Sundance Film Festival.

Marco Weber’s Senator Distribution has acquired North American rights to Shana Feste’s Sundance entry, “The Greatest.”  The film stars Pierce Brosnan, Susan Sarandon, and Carey Mulligan, and centers around the Brewers, family whose lives are shattered by the death of their teenage son, Bennett, in a car crash.

“I knew I had to write great roles if I was going to attach myself as a director to my script,” Feste told indieWIRE during Sundance. “Grief is such an interesting emotion - it takes you to such strange, wonderful, heartbreaking places - I knew that if I was going to write roles that would attract actors grief would be a good subject to explore. So I did quite a bit of research and was very inspired by the stories I heard from parents that had lost a child. There was enough material to write five screenplays. I was incredibly moved by the film “Ordinary People,” and wanted to tell a story about the death of a child in an equally truthful, inspiring way.”

The deal was negotiated by Senator COO Andrew Matthews, with Endeavor Independent’s Graham Taylor and CAA jointly representing the filmmakers.

“From the moment we saw ‘The Greatest’ at Sundance, our team pursued it aggressively, and we are thrilled the filmmakers have entrusted us with the project,” said Senator Chairman Weber and President Mark Urman in a statement.  “‘The Greatest’ is that rare film that combines extraordinary quality of execution with mass audience appeal.  For us, it was one of the true revelations of Sundance and our entire team loved it.”

“Ever since sitting down with Mark and Marco at Sundance I knew instinctively that they were the right distributor,” Feste said in a statement. “Their sensitivity to the themes of the film and their heartfelt emotional response convinced me that they understood the movie on a deeper level than most of the distributors we met with. I am thrilled that we were able to make this exciting partnership come to fruition.”

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