Yellow Veil Pictures Closes Deal With 1091 Pictures for Scott Friend’s Directorial Debut ‘To the Moon’

Cynthia Littleton Business EditorChicken Soup for the Soul, the parent company of Crackle and other streaming platforms, has reached an agreement to acquire production-distribution outfit 1091 Pictures for $15.6 million.The pact calls for Chicken Soup to acquire the New York-based company for $8 million in cash and the rest in stock. The deal brings to Chicken Soup a library of movies and TV series as well as its own streaming distribution platforms.Chicken Soup plans to merge 1091 Pictures assets with its Screen Vision division to enhance both companies’ ability to provides on-demand distribution options for independent filmmakers.“The 1091 Pictures team transformed their large content library into a scalable, modern distribution platform with a compelling slate of channels that are a pragmatic addition to our existing assets,” said David Fannon, president of Screen Media Ventures.

EXCLUSIVE: Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment, whose subsidiaries include specialty film distributor Screen Media, is acquiring 1091 Pictures.

Brent Lang Executive Editor of Film and MediaYellow Veil Pictures has acquired all North American rights to Gaspar Noé’s meta mockumentary “Lux Aeterna.” The studio is planning a theatrical release for the film this spring. “Lux Aeterna” made its world premiere at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival and was later selected for the Tribeca Film Festival prior to its cancellation due to the pandemic.“Lux Aeterna” unfolds backstage at a French film production and is stylistically daring, in the manner of many of Noé’s movies.

Bill Skarsgård has already made a name for himself as a pretty creepy man in various film and TV roles. But for the new short film, “Soul of a Man,” the actor took his knowledge of frights and applied them to his role as director.

EXCLUSIVE: Cinco Paul is set to make his feature animation directorial debut on Winter Wonderland, the live action/stop motion animation film built around the classic holiday song. Pic is a collaboration between Imagine Kids+Family and Warner Music Group. Deadline previously reported that Paul would be writing original songs for the live action/stop motion picture.

For several years now, Bill Murray (“The French Dispatch”) has been a good luck charm for director Wes Anderson, a perennial member of his troupe, but he’s a notoriously hard get. You need a killer script and an “in” to get him to read it.

London Fashion Week never fails to deliver the team at Hello! Fashion have been people watching. After two years of covid-induced uncertainty in the fashion world this year has finally brought the glitterati back to London in a way we haven’t seen since pre-2019. Ozwald Boateng's show attracted a galaxy of stars including Naomi Harris, Tinie Tempah and Idris Elba, and elsewhere we spotted industry icons like Victoria Beckham who made an appearance at the Supriya Lele show flanked by Mia Regan (the young model who is currently dating Romeo Beckham and clearly has earned Victoria's seal of approval) and Jourdan Dunn on either side.

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media ReporterAziz Ansari has been appointed to direct an untitled comedic-drama for Searchlight Pictures. He will co-star in the movie with Bill Murrary.Ansari, who created the Netflix series “Master of None,” is making his feature directorial debut.

Aziz Ansari (Master of None, Parks and Recreation) is making his feature directorial debut with an untitled dramedy for Searchlight, based on the 2014 non-fiction book Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End by surgeon Atul Gawande, in which he’ll star alongside Oscar nominee Bill Murray (The French Dispatch, Lost in Translation), Deadline has confirmed.

Jana Duggar has returned to Arkansas after a long break to Los Angeles, and now she is sharing rare pictures of her mom Michelle from the trip.MORE: Counting On's Jana Duggar shocks fans with outfit choiceMichelle and her eldest daughter Jana were joined by son Jason for the visit to California where Jinger Duggar lives with her husband Jeremy Vuolo. In one picture, Michelle wore black leggings with a mid-length denim skirt and a white jacket, as her daughters - who both grew up wearing only skirts - wore jeans and a loose sweater.WATCH: Jana Duggar shares reel of her trip to Los AngelesIn another picture, Jana, 32, rocked a casual look in blue jeans and a black crew-neck tee.Jana also shared a fun reel of her trip, revealing that they spent time on the coast including Venice Beach and Malibu, visiting famous restaurants including Dukes.MORE: Everything you need to know about the Duggar family weddingsMORE: Jana Duggar courts engagement speculation as she keeps left hand hiddenJinger and Jeremy live near Sun Valley, in the San Fernando Valley, where they attend Grace Community Church as Jeremy pursues graduate studies at The Master’s SeminaryMom Michelle rarely appears on her children's social media feeds, and has been absent in recent months as the family deal with eldest son Josh Duggar was found guilty of being in receipt of child pornography.

If you’ve seen the trailer for the new Channing Tatum vehicle “Dog” – and if you’ve been in a movie theater over the past couple of months, you probably have – you might think you know what to expect: a big lug and a tough dog have a bunch of wacky road trip adventures, softening up to each other along the way. So it might surprise you to learn that the scene of a kind-hearted woman showing our hero how to be affectionate to the canine is carefully cut so as not to reveal that our hero is literally wielding an axe.

EXCLUSIVE: German actor Saralisa Volm makes her directorial debut with mystery thriller The Silent Forest, which is premiering tonight at the Berlin Film Festival in the Perspektive Deutsches section. Here’s an exclusive clip from the film.

sexual abuse allegations against ex-Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein.“Pussy Island,” a psychological thriller recently acquired by MGM, will follow a cocktail waitress named Frida (Naomi Ackie), who sets her sights on the tech entrepreneur Slater King (Channing Tatum). She finds herself in Slater’s inner circle and she is brought to his private island that houses a secret.In a profile with Elle magazine published Monday, Kravitz shed some light on her movie, saying it was inspired by “the lack of conversation around the way women are treated specifically in the entertainment industry.” The script underwent various changes to reflect the current status of gender issues.“I started writing it pre-#MeToo, pre-Harvey [Weinstein].

K.J. Yossman “I would not have chosen to direct my first film in the middle of a global pandemic,” Graham Moore said wryly of his move from scribe to auteur.In 2015, the novelist and screenwriter won an Academy Award for his adaptation “The Imitation Game,” in which Benedict Cumberbatch played World War II codebreaker Alan Turing.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentVictoria Bedos, the creator and co-writer of “La Famille Belier,” the hit French movie that was remade into Sian Heder’s Oscar-nominated “CODA,” is getting ready to make her feature debut with Focus Features/Universal in France.For her directorial debut, “Leo et moi,” Bedos will once tell the bittersweet story of a teenager set against an unusual backdrop, a theme she probed in “Famille Belier.” “Leo et moi” (working title) is produced by Hélène Cases at Lionceau Films and follows 14-year-old Marie-Luce Bison, who lives with her widowed father at a group home for seniors in rural France. Universal will distribute the film in theaters in France and Focus Features has global rights.In the film, Marie, growing up as an outsider surrounded by elderly people and her distant father, isn’t like anyone else at school and the other kids notice it.

Focus Features has dated B.J. Novak’s feature directorial debut, Vengeance, for Friday, July 29.

EXCLUSIVE: Quiver Distribution has acquired Mayim Bialik’s feature directorial debut As They Made Us, starring Diana Agron (Shiva Baby, Glee), Simon Helberg (Annette, The Big Bang Theory), Oscar nominee Candice Bergen (Let Them All Talk, Starting Over) and two-time Oscar winner Dustin Hoffman (The Meyerowitz Stories, Rain Main), slating it for release in theaters and on VOD on April 8.

EXCLUSIVE: Theo Rossi (Emily the Criminal, Army of the Dead) has set Diamondback as his feature directorial debut, and will also star in the thriller based on true events.