EXCLUSIVE: Goodfellas has acquired world sales rights for Emilio Estevez’s The Way: Chapter 2, reuniting the actor-director with the cast members of his original 2010 hit, father Martin Sheen, Yorick Van Wageningen and James Nesbitt.
The sequel revisits protagonist Tom (Sheen) a decade after his first pilgrimage on Spain’s El Camino de Santiago in the footsteps of his deceased son Daniel (Estevez), as he reconnects with his walking companions Joost (van Wageningen) and Jack (Nisbitt).
Now embedded with Doctors Without Borders in northern Nigeria, performing surgery in a war zone, Tom is sent a copy of Jack’s bestselling book based on their shared experience, in which a disturbing secret is revealed.
Enraged, he leaves to search for Jack and find answers to questions that have haunted him for a decade. His journey reunites him with Joost and leads them through Amsterdam, Dublin, Brussels and France before returning to Spain and the Camino.
Estevez, who revealed to Deadline last year that he had wrestled back the rights to The Way for a re-release and a sequel, takes writing and directing credits on the new film, which is produced by E2 Films.
The film is currently in pre-production. Sheen is represented by Carter Cohn at CAA and Estevez by Robb Klein at Sheppard Mullin.
Goodfellas will also launch international sales on Grammy Award-winning Somali-Canadian rapper and singer K’naan Warsame’s feature directorial debut Mother, Mother from Republic Pictures, which will also handle domestic sales.
Maan Youssouf Ahmed stars as a widow struggling to make a living as a cattle herder with her son. When he is murdered, she is wracked with guilt that she may have driven him to his death. When the killer is caught, she rejects her right to revenge opting for another form of retribution in a move that shocks the nation but opens a new door to the possibility of healing. Ahmed is joined in the cast by Hassan Najib (Dune: Part Two) and Elmi Rashid Elmi (Dune, The Swimmers).
The film is produced by Alex Kurtzman and Jenny Lumet on behalf of 25 Stories, along with Andrea Calderwood (The Last King of Scotland, The Constant Gardener) for Potboiler Productions. Morgan Earnest and Faye Stapleton executive produce for Secret Hideout. The film, now in post-production, was shot by Oscar-nominated cinematographer César Charlone (City of God, The Constant Gardener) and wrapped production in Africa in December.
Further new slate additions include thriller Mexico 86 by Belgian-Guatemalan César Diaz, who made waves with Guatemalan civil war disappearance drama Our Mothers, which won Cannes’ Caméra d’Or in 2019.
Mexico 86 stars Bérénice Bejo as a Guatemalan rebel activist fighting against the corrupt military dictatorship, who is forced to flee to Mexico in 1976, leaving her son behind. A decade later, he comes to live with her, forcing her to choose between her duties as a mother and her revolutionary activism.
Diaz has taken inspiration from his own personal story for the drama.
The film is produced by Need Productions (Clara Sola, Our Mothers) with Tripode Productions (Love According To Dalva), Pimienta Films and Menuetto Film (The Eight Mountains).
Goodfellas will also launch sales on Portuguese Scotland-based filmmaker Laura Carriera’s debut feature On Falling, following a Portuguese migrant warehouse worker in Edinburgh as she battles the alienation and isolation that threaten her sense of self. The film is produced by Ken Loach and Rebecca O’Brien’s Sixteen Films.
It will also unveil Cannes regular Eric Khoo’s Spirit World, starring Catherine Deneuve as a legendary singer who dies after performing in a sold-out show in Japan.
She finds herself in the spirit world where she will be guided by Yuzo, one of her biggest fans, played by Massaki Sakai, who is best known internationally as the star of the 1970s hit show Monkey.
Spirit World is a coproduction between French company M.I. Movies (The Truth) , Khoo’s Singapore based Zhao Wei Films, Japan’s Fourier Films, Knockonwood Inc. and Wild Orange Artists.
The film has just wrapped shooting in Japan. ARP Sélection has pre-bought French rights.
Goodfellas is also working on Berlinale Golden Bear contender Langue Etrangère by French filmmaker Claire Burger (Party Girl, C’est Ça L’Amour) as well as Chinese director Qiu Yang’s drama Some Rain Must Fall, about a housewife caught-up in a spiraling chain of events when she inadvertently injures an elderly women at her daughter’s basketball match.
Other previously announced English-language titles include Olivier Masset-Depasse’s Largo Winch adventure The Price Of Money with Tomer Sisley and James Franco, and Charles Williams’ prison drama Inside with Vincent Miller, Guy Pearce and Cosmo Jarvis.
Further upcoming French titles include Dominique Baumard’s true Paris Museum of Modern Art heist tale The French Job and Gianluca Jodice’s period drama The Flood, following the final days of Marie Antoinette and their children in the Tour de Temple in Paris; and Charlène Favier’s Oxana, about Oxana Chatchko, the later co-founder of the militant feminist Femen group.
The company is also rolling out Giovanni Aloi’s crime thriller Hunting Ground about a student gets caught in a spiralling settling of scores when he takes a job as a bartender at a gangster-run hunting lodge which is a front for illegal poker nights and prostitution.
It is the latest feature to come out of Wild West, Goodfellas’ genre-focused joint venture with Capricci, which previously produced Vincent Must Die and The Swarm.
