Sony Pictures Classics has snapped up Andy Garcia‘s Diamond, taking worldwide rights to the actor-director’s long-gestating Los Angeles noir following its buzzy Cannes Film Festival premiere. The deal covers all territories except France, Germany, Italy and CIS.
Written, directed, produced by and starring Garcia, Diamond transports a 1940s-style gumshoe into present-day Los Angeles. Garcia plays Joe Diamond, a private detective who dresses in vintage three-piece suits, narrates his days in hardboiled voiceover and carries a traumatic past. He’s an urban legend with a knack for cracking cases the LAPD can’t. When a wealthy widow (Vicky Krieps) hires him to prove she didn’t kill her husband, Diamond works the case in the shadow of a rival police detective (Brendan Fraser).
Garcia has said the film is just as a much a love letter to classic L.A. noirs as it seems. In its announcement, Sony Pictures Classics compared the film to the great Philip Marlowe mysteries of the past.
The film premiered out of competition on the Croisette in May — Garcia’s first return to Cannes since Ocean’s Thirteen in 2007 — drawing warm reviews. THR’s critic summed it up as “a nostalgic crime flick with heart.”
“I’ve been working on this story for close to 20 years. This is not unusual for personal films in the independent world. Stories take time to unfold. They haunt you, as you continue to work on them,” Garcia said in a statement, adding: “When they are ready, in their own time, the movie gods open the window of opportunity. Perhaps we exhaust them with our persistence and that great obstacle is overcome by the dream. So they give up and bless you with this extraordinary cast to tell your story. Dreams sometimes do come true.”
Krieps and Fraser lead a packed ensemble of famous faces. Two-time Oscar winner Dustin Hoffman, Oscar nominee Bill Murray, Rosemarie DeWitt, Demián Bichir, Danny Huston, LaTanya Richardson Jackson, Yul Vazquez, Robert Patrick and Rachel Ticotin round out the cast.
Garcia also oversaw the film’s music, co-writing the score with jazz trumpet legend Arturo Sandoval — the longtime friend and collaborator Garcia memorably portrayed in the 2000 HBO biopic For Love or Country. Both are Grammy winners.
A production of Garcia’s CineSon banner, Diamond was produced by Garcia, Jai Stefan for Shrink Media, Frank Mancuso Jr. for FGM Entertainment and Paul Soriano for Black Cap Pictures/TEN17P, with Black Cap and Nexis Entertainment financing. Sony Pictures Classics negotiated the deal with CAA Media Finance on behalf of the filmmakers, with The Veterans overseeing international rights. A release date has yet to be set.
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