Sony Classics Aims To Profit Off "Prophet"

A scene from Jacques Audiard's "The Prophet." Image courtesy of Cannes Film Festival.

Variety is reporting that Sony Pictures Classics has acquired Jacques Audiard's Cannes competition entry "A Prophet", which received stellar reviews when it premiered earlier this week.

"Audiard’s 'A Prophet' has already been compared to Scorsese’s nearly twenty year old 'Goodfellas' many times over the past 24 hours here in France for its engaging examination of a seedy, gangster-driven underworld," indieWIRE's Eugene Hernandez said earlier this week. While Anthony Kaufman called the film one of Cannes' most conventional this year, but also one of the most satisfying: "Audiard skillfully captures Malik’s confusion with a wandering handheld camera and his limited worldview with a masked lens that only reveals a small circular portion of the frame - a closed-off perspective that will inevitably widen by the films’ conclusion."

Sony took North American, Latin American and Australian rights to the film, "among other territories." Variety noted that several distributors had been interested in the film but many "reported that sales company Celluloid Dreams had attached a steep price tag for the U.S. rights."

The film is widely considered a top contender for this year's Palme d'Or prize. One of its biggest competitors - Michael Haneke's "The White Ribbon" - is also a Sony Classics pickup.