Cannes Hot Package: Ken Kwapis’ Indie ‘Thelma’ Adds Stephen Root & Tim Blake Nelson; The Exchange To Launch Sales At Cannes
deadline.comEXCLUSIVE: Stephen Root (Barry) and Tim Blake Nelson (Old Henry) have signed on to star alongside Oscar and Emmy winner Kathy Bates, two-time Oscar nominee and Emmy winner John Malkovich and Lewis Pullman in Thelma, an upcoming indie to be directed by two-time Emmy nominee Ken Kwapis (#BlackAF, The Office).
The Exchange will be introducing the title to international buyers at the 2022 Cannes Film Market, with ICM Partners and UTA Independent Film Group handling domestic.Thelma recounts the true story of the mother of John Kennedy Toole (Pullman), the Pulitzer Prize winning author of A Confederacy of Dunces.
Toole died by suicide before finding a home for his masterpiece, and his mother Thelma (Bates) made it her life’s mission, through outrageous gamesmanship, to see the book published.
She eventually succeeded in getting the manuscript into the hands of writer Walker Percy (Malkovich), who became the novel’s champion.
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