Tom Ford‘s second directorial outing, Nocturnal Animals, has quickly landed a worldwide home with Universal and Focus after the fashion designer personally outlined his vision for the project to buyers gathered in Cannes.
Ford is eyeing a 2016 release. Amy Adamsand Jake Gyllenhaal are set to star in the film, a thriller that marks Ford’s follow-up to A Single Man (2009).
Sources peg the price at $20 million, which would mark the largest sale of this year’s festival and one of the largest preemptive buys in history, rivaling the $20 million Paramount paid a year ago in Cannes for Story of Your Life, also starring Adams. Universal will handle Nocturnal Animals internationally while Focus will release the film in the U.S.
Nocturnal Animals is based on Austin Wright‘s book Tony and Susan. Ford wrote the script for the postmodern noir thriller.
Wright’s book was initially published in 1993 and tells of a woman named Susan who receives a book manuscript from her ex-husband, a man whom she left 20 years earlier, asking for her opinion.
The book then tracks two stories: the story in the novel, titled Nocturnal Animals, which tells of a man whose family vacation turns violent and deadly; and the story of Susan, who finds herself recalling her first marriage and confronting some dark truths about herself.
Ford met with buyers from around the globe on Thursday.
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