Typically, each annual Sundance Film Festival brings about a record breaking distribution deal, with the biggest of those deals going to the $10.5 million paid to Little Miss Sunshine a decade ago and the $10 million given to the Steve Coogan picture Hamlet 2 eight years ago. Both of those features have been left in the dust by a deal just made for a feature film centered on Nat Turner entitled The Birth Of A Nation. Fox Searchlight Pictures (the studio behind such indie film hits as The Grand Budapest Hotel, Birdman, Slumdog Millionaire, Black Swan, 12 Years A Slave and Juno) has put down $17.5 million for distribution rights to the film.
