Voltage Acquires Worldwide Rights to Michelle Monaghan's 'Fort Bliss' (Exclusive)

Fort Bliss Michelle Monaghan - H 2013

Voltage Pictures has acquired worldwide rights to the indie drama Fort Bliss, starring Michelle Monaghan. The company, which previously produced The Hurt Locker and Joseph Gordon-Levitt's Don Jon, will start selling the movie to international territories at the American Film Market in November.

The cast also includes Ron Livingston, Emmanuelle Chriqui and Six Feet Under's Freddy Rodriguez. Monaghan, whose credits include Source Code, Made of Honorand Mission: Impossible III, plays a decorated U.S. Army medic and single mother who returns home from an extended tour in Afghanistan to face a troubled relationship with her 5-year-old son. Just as her life begins to stabilize, she is deployed overseas again.

Made for less than $5 million, Fort Bliss is written and directed by Claudia Myers (Kettle of Fish), and produced by John Sullivan, Adam Silver, Brendan McDonald and Myers. Matt Chesse (Monster's Ball, World War Z) is co-editor and executive producer.

Myers, Silver and McDonald developed the project, which came out of Myers and Silver’s experiences working with the Army on a series of training films. The movie was shot at the real-life Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas, and Los Angeles.

The producers had some private investors and then brought in Yeniceri Pictures, a Turkish company looking to make their first investment in an American movie, which is represented in the U.S. by Sullivan.

"What struck me the most about the script was that it absolutely pulled no punches," says Sullivan. "It was well-balanced yet complex, the characters were uncompromising, and it had an intense sense of realism that I think translates into a film with true gravitas."

Sullivan says the timing was right for this drama because "there has been a relentless stream of war for a very long time now and each of these conflicts involve our military. While that sounds like a simple statement, the military is made up of men and women who make incredible sacrifices every day and for extended periods of time, and in almost every case that price is also paid for by their families as well."

Voltage will also handle the sale of the film's domestic rights but plans to wait until the movie has played at some film festivals, building its profile, to start those transactions.

Voltage, founded in 2005 by Nicolas Chartier, was the company that produced The Hurt Locker, the Kathryn Bigelow-directed war drama that won six Oscars including best picture. More recently, the company financed and produced Joseph Gordon-Levitt's directorial debut, Don Jon. Voltage recently wrapped production on another movie in which Monaghan stars: A Many Splintered Thing,directed by Justin Reardon.


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