StudioCanal, Sunnymarch + Nine Stories To Develop RIO With Director Edward Berger and Jake Gyllenhaal + Benedict Cumberbatch To Star

BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH AND ADAM ACKLAND AND JAKE GYLLENHAAL AND RIVA MARKER TO PRODUCE

STUDIOCANAL, Sunnymarch and Nine Stories confirmed today that Edward Berger will direct RIO. Berger has been nominated for an Emmy Award for the series PATRICK MELROSE for which he directed all episodes. Steven Knight has written the screenplay.

Academy Award nominees BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH AND JAKE GYLLENHAAL ATTACHED TO STAR

RIO, a psychological thriller which centres on two old friends who meet again in Rio, one a journalist the other a hugely successful financier. RIO will be produced by Benedict Cumberbatch and Adam Ackland through SunnyMarch and Jake Gyllenhaal and Riva Marker through Nine Stories.

Ron Halpern and Shana Eddy are overseeing for STUDIOCANAL.

Benedict Cumberbatch and Adam Ackland confirm “We are delighted to be working with Ed Berger again on this very special project. Together with STUDIOCANAL and Nine Stories this promises to be a terrific collaboration, we can’t wait to bring RIO to life”

Jake Gyllenhaal and Riva Marker of Nine Stories comment “Edward Berger’s work is superb. We are thrilled to be collaborating with him, STUDIOCANAL and Sunny March — an undeniably talented group of filmmakers.”

STUDIOCANAL CEO Didier Lupfer and EVP International Production Ron Halpern add “We are thrilled to be working with Edward Berger. He is a director we have wanted to work with since we first saw Jack and Deutschland 83. Steve has written a great thriller and we couldn’t be more excited to work with the directing, writing, producing and acting caliber behind this project.”

Edward Berger has already established himself as one of the world’s leading film and television directors. His recent directorial work on the critically-acclaimed mini-series PATRICK MELROSE, starred Benedict Cumberbatch and Jennifer Jason Leigh, and has already picked up 5 Emmy nominations, including: Best Director and Best Limited series. Berger also directed the first two hours of this year’s AMC smash-hit, THE TERROR. His past credits include the landmark series DEUTSCHLAND 83, which won the International Emmy in 2016, and the widely praised feature film, JACK, which premiered at the Berlin Film Festival, picking up multiple awards internationally. He was one of Variety’s ‘10 Europeans to Watch’ in 2017.

Edward Berger is represented by ICM Partners, Anonymous Content and Casarotto Ramsay & Associates Ltd. Gyllenhaal and Nine Stories are represented by WME and Bloom Hergott.

Steven Knight’s first screenplay, DIRTY PRETTY THINGS directed by Stephen Frears, premiered at the 2002 Venice Film Festival to outstanding reviews and was selected to open the prestigious London Film Festival. The film was released in the UK and the US to universal critical acclaim. It won a host of prestigious awards including four BIFAs, Best Film & Best Actor at the Evening Standard British Film Awards, the 2004 Humanitas Award, the Edgar Award for Best Motion Picture Screenplay, Best British Screenwriter at the London Film Critics’ Circle Awards and an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay at the 76th Annual Academy Awards.

His first stageplay, THE PRESIDENT OF AN EMPTY ROOM, directed by Howard Davies, opened at the National Theatre, London in 2005.

2 more screenplays were released in 2007. AMAZING GRACE, directed by Michael Apted, about the life of the British anti-slavery politician William Wilberforce and EASTERN PROMISES, directed by David Cronenberg and starring Viggo Mortensen and Naomi Watts, which centred on London’s Russian crime community.

Steve is also the creator and Executive Producer/writer on BAFTA Award winning PEAKY BLINDERS, starring Cillian Murphy, Helen McCrory and Paul Anderson. Series 5 will start shooting later this year.

He’s also the Executive Producer/creator/writer on BBC series TABOO, which starred Tom Hardy.

He has directed 3 films - all of which he also wrote - his directorial debut, HUMMINGBIRD starred Jason Statham and Agata Buzek about a damaged ex-special forces soldier living on the streets of London. LOCKE, with Tom Hardy, about an ordinary working man whose life changes in the course of one evening and which won him a 2013 BIFA for Best Screenplay and, SERENITY, starring Matthew McConaughey and Anne Hathaway, which will be released in October

STUDIOCANAL, a 100% affiliate of CANAL+ Group held by Vivendi, is Europe’s leader in production, right acquisition, distribution and international sales of feature films and TV series. STUDIOCANAL operates directly in all three major European markets, France, the United Kingdom and Germany, as well as in Australia and New Zealand.

STUDIOCANAL owns one of the most important film libraries in the world, boasting more than 6,500 titles from 60 countries, including the iconic Terminator 2, Breathless, Mulholland Drive and Belle de jour.

STUDIOCANAL has fully-financed box office hits Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, Paddington 1 and 2, Non-Stop and Shaun The Sheep. Upcoming films backed by STUDIOCANAL include Marjane Satrapi’s Radioactive featuring Rosamund Pike, The Secret Garden produced by David Heyman starring Colin Firth, Aardman Studios’ stop-motion film Shaun the Sheep 2, and Hard Powder starring Liam Neeson.

STUDIOCANAL is actively developing and distributing high-end TV series through its network of award-winning European production companies, including Tandem Productions in Germany (Crossing Lines, Spotless), the UK’s RED Production Company (The Five, Happy Valley), Scandinavia’s SAM created by Soren Sveistrup and Adam Price (Borgen, The Killing), and Spain’s BAMBÚ.

SunnyMarch is an independent film and TV production company run by Ackland and Cumberbatch. Upcoming film projects include Cold War spy thriller IRONBARK to be directed by Dominic Cooke with a script from Tom O’Connor, an adaptation of the New York Times Bestseller GUANTÁNAMO DIARY, adapted by Michael Bronner with Kevin MacDonald attached to direct, a film based on Geoffrey Household’s classic British novel ROGUE MALE and an adaptation of Megan Hunter’s bestselling debut novel THE END WE START FROM. TV credits include the multi Emmy nominated PATRICK MELROSE and THE CHILD IN TIME.

Nine Stories is a New-York based production company founded by Jake Gyllenhaal and Riva Marker in 2015. The company is dedicated to working with visionary storytellers and producing for film, television and stage. Nine Stories produced David Gordon Green’s feature film “Stronger,” starring Gyllenhaal as Boston Marathon bombing survivor Jeff Bauman, which opened to critical acclaim in the fall 2017, and executive produced “Hondros,” an award-winning documentary on war photographer Chris Hondros, which was released theatrically by Entertainment Studios in spring 2018. The company also produced “Wildlife,” Paul Dano’s directorial debut starring Gyllenhaal and Carey Mulligan which premiered at both the Sundance and Cannes Film Festivals and will be released by IFC on October 19, 2018.

For the stage, Nine Stories produced the acclaimed revival of Stephen Sondheim’s Pulitzer Prize-winning masterpiece “Sunday in the Park with George,” starring Gyllenhaal and Tony-winner Annaleigh Ashford. The musical played a sold-out 10-week engagement, becoming one of the most successful productions in Sondheim's esteemed history. Nine Stories will produce “Sea Wall / A Life,” starring Gyllenhaal and Tony Award nominee Tom Sturridge, which will have its New York premiere at the Public Theater on January 26, 2019.

Gyllenhaal’s previous producing credits include David Ayer’s “End of Watch” and Dan Gilroy’s “Nightcrawler,” which was nominated for numerous awards, including an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay and winning Independent Spirit Awards for Best Screenplay and Best First Feature. Marker’s previous producing credits include the Academy Award-nominated “The Kids Are All Right;” “What Maisie Knew;” “Hello, My Name is Doris,” and the Peabody Award-winning film “Beasts of No Nation,” written and directed by Cary Fukunaga.