“DARKNESS OF MANS,” STARRING JEAN-CLAUDE VAN DAMME, IS ACQUIRED BY SABAN FILMS

The U.S., U.K., and other worldwide rights to the action-spy thriller “Darkness of Man” starring Jean-Claude Van Damme have been acquired by Saban Films.

In the James Cullen Bressack-directed movie, Van Damme plays Interpol agent Russell Hatch, who watches his last informant killed during a routine raid gone awry. Years later, he adopts the son of the informant as his own, and finds himself defending the boy from a pack of vicious gangs engaged in a full-scale turf war.

The movie, which also stars rapper Sticky Fingaz, Kristanna Loken (Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines), Peter Jae (Blackhat), Spencer Breslin (The Kid), and Emerson Min (Black-ish), has been acquired by Saban Films in addition to the United States and the United Kingdom.

Alethea Cho and Cullen Bressack wrote the screenplay, which was based on an original story by Cullen Bressack and Van Damme.

Worldwide sales were negotiated for Saban Films by Steve Break on behalf of J.D. Beaufils and Julie Paquit of VMI Worldwide. Additionally, VMI completed territory sales with SPI Intl. (Germany and Italy), Global Media Distribution (Latin America), Program Store (France), Phoenicia Pictures Intl. (Turkey and Middle East), and Plaion (Germany and Middle East) (CIS, EE, Benelux).

Cullen Bressack, Jarrett Furst, Andre Relis, and Jessica Bennett are the producers of “Darkness of Man.” Van Damme, Beaufils, Matthew Helderman, Luke Taylor, Grady Craig, Sean Patrick O’Reilly, Ameer Fawaz, and James V. Bulian are executive producers.

The Clean Up Crew by Jon Keeyes, “The Last Girl” by Alice Eve, Shelley Hennig, and Antonio Banderas, “The Ambush” by Pierre Morel, the highest-grossing Arabic-language movie in UAE history, and “Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon” by Ana Lily Amirpour, starring Kate Hudson and Jun Jong-Seo, are all recent acquisitions by Saban Films.