MadRiver Pictures announced today that Academy Award® nominee Michael Keaton (Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance), Spotlight) is in negotiations to star in Academy Award® winner David Frankel’s (The Devil Wears Prada, Collateral Beauty) true-life biographical drama, What Is Life Worth. Additional casting is currently underway. Academy Award® winning producer Michael Sugar (Spotlight) will produce alongside Marc Butan, Sean Sorensen and Max Borenstein and Bard Dorros. Kim Fox will executive produce along with Riverstone’s Nik Bower and Deepak Nayar. Riverstone is financing.
Based on the acclaimed memoir by Kenneth Feinberg, the Black List script is penned by Max Borenstein. What Is Life Worth is an Erin Brockovich/Spotlight-type story of Ken Feinberg, a powerful insider D.C. lawyer put in charge of the 9/11 Fund, who in almost 3 years of pro bono work on the case, fights off the cynicism, bureaucracy and politics associated with administering government funds and in doing so, discovers what life is worth.
Keaton recently wrapped production on Tim Burton’s Dumbo for Disney, which is scheduled for a 2019 release. He recently appeared in Spider-Man: Homecoming for Columbia Pictures, Michael Cuesta’s American Assassin and Tom McCarthy’s Academy Award® winning film Spotlight.
Frankel is best known for helming The Devil Wears Prada and Marley and Me. Frankel directed the pilot for “Entourage” and won a Primetime Emmy® Award for his work on “Band of Brothers.” Most recently Frankel has helmed the dramedy Hope Springs featuring Meryl Streep, Tommy Lee Jones, and Steve Carell and the Will Smith starrer Collateral Beauty.
IMR is launching sales in Berlin, with the film joining a sales slate that includes Vigilence starring Sandra Bullock and Jacques Audiard’s The Sisters Brothers starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Joaquin Phoenix.
Riverstone Pictures has recently financed Julian Schnabel’s At Eternity’s Gate and Harmony Korine’s The Beach Bum, and produced Stanley Tucci’s Final Portrait starring Geoffrey Rush and Armie Hammer, which Sony Pictures Classics will launch at SXSW. What is Life Worth was developed with Isabella’s Basil Productions.
Sean Sorensen acquired the rights to Kenneth Feinberg’s acclaimed memoir and developed the Black List script with screenwriter Max Borenstein.
