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Here's something you don't see everyday: Participant Prods. is teaming up with Broken Lizard producers Jay Chandrasekhar and Julia Dray on a new comedy called Taildraggers. For those who aren't familiar with Participant Prods., that's like saying Al Gore decided to co-direct a film with the Jackass boys. Participant, who's known more for their politically and environmentally aware films (Syriana, An Inconvenient Truth, Fast Food Nation) is making this their first geared toward a younger audience. That's not to say Taildraggers won't come with a friendly message attached; in fact, part of the plot includes uncovering "a plan to dig oil from the Alaskan nature preserve."

After playing Super Troopers, hedonistic swingers and competitive beer drinkers, it appears at least one Lizard will this time take on "a small Alaskan airline who face a bitter rivalry with a local taxi company." Man, we must be talking about one small airline if their biggest rival are a bunch of taxis. Unlike their previous films, however, Taildraggers will be written by Will Gluck, and not the entire Lizard team. In fact, I don't even know who that is. No word yet on whether the rest of the clan (Kevin Heffernan, Steve Lemme, Paul Soter, Erik Stolhanske) will be involved, but since none of them are mentioned, it seems Taildraggers will be more like a Liz production, then something put out by the entire Lizard crew. No word on a director or a start date, but if Chandrasekhar decided to step behind the camera, then look for some of his good pals to show up and lend a hand.

Though it wasn't technically screened at the Sundance Film Festival, Overture Films secured their first acquisition while in Park City, picking up the rights to Ferris Wheel, a drama produced by and starring Charlize Theron. Overture, a brand new production-distribution company, plans to shovel out two to three films per year before upping its annual slate to eight to twelve films; the Ferris Wheel deal was made after Overture execs watched only 45 minutes of the film, which currently is not yet complete.

Pic, which marks Bill Maher's (no, not that Bill Maher) directorial debut, revolves around a poor, irresponsible mother who leaves her daughter (AnnaSophia Robb) with her brother (Nick Stahl) for a little too long (since the word 'abandons' is used in the description, I take it this is a rather lengthy babysitting gig) to go party it up with the wrong crowd ... or, more specifically, Woody Harrelson. I tell ya, it's nice to see Theron trying desperately not to play the hot (wife? girlfriend? mistress? girl next door?) in every single film, as easy as it would be for her to do. I take it this will be another Theron role in which we'll find her all strung out, getting down with her bad self in a dramatic, kind-of-pretty-but-not-quite sort of way.

Script was penned by Zac Stanford, who made a splash at Sundance back in 2005 with The Chumscrubber -- the darkly twisted family drama which I found much more enjoyable than the film I always confuse it with, Thumbsucker.

Karina Longworth, the Editor Emeritus of Cinematical, is taking advantage of her mostly-meaningless title to post a diary of her experiences at Sundance. Your new editor wants her to do this every day, but in case she, uh, doesn't, it's because her real job got in the way.

Reading Eugene Hernandez' blog whilst waiting the for the cab to arrive to take me to La Gaurdia this morning, I learned that David Poland and Jeffrey Wells have declared that Sundance 2007, which officially begins tonight, is, in fact, already over. You see, they arrived in Park City a good 48 hours ahead of me, took turns inserting their thermometers in the rectum of the festival, and rushed to their computers to report the reading: cold. In fact, according to Wells, EVERYONE is saying that this year's line-up looks "flat, so-so, nothing to write home about material...a couple of almost-but-not-quite- as-good-as-Half Nelson flicks, and apparently nothing even close to a Little Miss Sunshine-type breakout waiting to happen."

Though tempted to reach for my phone to cancel the car -- a Sundance without a Sunshine is no Sundance for me! -- my more rational self prevailed. Instead, actually invigorated by the prospect of attending a film festival in which an over-hyped (and over-priced) Vacation retread steals headlines (and potential aquisition dollars) from ten or twelve films more deserving of market share, I zipped up my laptop and went downstairs. I went to the airport, got on the plane, and landed a little while ago. I even had my first Chik-fil-a in the Cincinatti airport during my layover. It was good. I ate too many waffle fries, though.

Over at her Risky Biz Blog, Anne Thompson has a piece up on the big scoop around United Artists. United Artists has been a studio in limbo ever since Sony acquired both MGM and UA in April of last year. No one was sure if Sony would simply absorb the other company, or whether they would continue to use their brand and logo as a distribution arm. Today the mystery is over, with MGM announcing today that Tom Cruise and his partner Paula Wagner will help relaunch the new United Artists as partner-operators. This finally lands Cruise at a new studio, after being released by Paramount following the disappointing box office take for M:I3, and displeasure over Tom's couch-jumping antics. The new deal gives Cruise and Wagner the ability to greenlight their own projects, and will serve as a pipeline for them to distribute their own content. What remains unclear is how this newly announced deal will affect the new Cruise/Wagner production company that was cobbled together by investors once Tom left Paramount.

Since 1919 United Artists has had a storied past since inception and creation by four of the film world's biggest stars at the time: Douglas Fairbanks, Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford and director D.W. Griffith. It enjoyed both success and failures in the intervening years, giving birth to such franchises as the Rocky, James Bond, and Pink Panther films as part of its highs, and being the studio behind the Heaven's Gate debacle as part of the lows, which left it essentially bankrupt in 1980. The press release lauds Cruise as, "one of the most successful, critically acclaimed and sought after movie stars in the world. Cruise's films have resulted in worldwide box office totals of approximately US$6 billion and his last two films, War of the Worlds and Mission: Impossible III have grossed nearly US$1 billion worldwide." United Artists is hoping that both Cruise name and star power will help bring them home some of that bling.

Man Push Cart director Ramin Bahrani sent out a press release last night that his film has closed a deal for North American rights with Films Philos. Films Philos will open the film in late fall/early winter 2006. As we previously reported, Man Push Cart closed deals for distribution in France, Greece and Italy a few days ago. Man Push Cart is about a former Pakistani pop star who is selling coffee and doughnuts from a pushcart in New York City. Cinematical interviewed director Ramin Bahrani, star Ahmad Razvi and cinematographer Michael Simmonds, and will have the interview up soon. Indiewire ran a piece on the deal today and in their pic with the article (above), you can see the Cinematical tshirt peeking out from underneath Bahrani's sweater.

People have been talking about Wordplay, Patrick Creadon's doc about Will Shortz, the editor of the infamous New York Times crossword puzzle. Though our own James found it torture to sit through – in no small part because, as he puts it, the film apparently "has all the gravitas of lint" – audiences are responding well (overheard in a line: "It's good. It's Word Wars, but it's not. It's good."), and buyers are interested. According to indieWIRE, reps from four distributors (Picturehouse, Warner Independent, Fox Searchlight and Roadside Attractions) put in face time with the filmmakers yesterday over bacon, eggs, and – what else? – the Sunday puzzle. The ink was reserved for the crossword, however – Cinetic has yet to close a deal on the picture.

Gossip in the press lounge: everyone's talking about the reported $10-12 million that Paramount has allegedly plunked down last night for Little Miss Sunshine (no deal has formally been announced yet). The received wisdom is that the deal was half-done before the festival even started – and that Paramount, afraid that another studio would come in and best them, offered way too much money. A behind-the-scenes indie film legend was overheard saying that a certain Hollywood reporter had already branded it "this year's Happy, Texas" – that is, the film that will be acquired for way too much, and then fail to do the kind of business that could even recoup its investment. But the indie legend disagreed – he's a fan of Steve Carell's performance in the film, and he said that, if anything, Sunshine could be this year's Napoleon Dynamite - that is, Paramount probably payed to much for it, but commercial prospects look very, very good. The film was directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, first time feature makers perhaps best known for their video for The Smashing Pumpkins' Tonight, Tonight, which was inspired by Georges Mellies' A Trip to the Moon. Steve Carell and Greg Kinnear star, but neither is here to promote it – I was told by someone who tried to get the two together for an interview that the actors "hate each other's guts."

The last deal of Sundance 2005 was announced the day we got to Park City for Sundance 2006. After a year-long tour of festivals worldwide, Mark and Jay Duplass have scored a deal with Roadside Attractions and Netflix to release their relationship comedy,The Puffy Chair. As I understand it, the deal is for both theatrical and DVD distribution, though not, as some are reporting simultaneously. Roadside plans to put the film in theaters next summer with both their logo and Netflix' on the print. Netflix will promote the release through their channels, but when the theatrical window closes and DVD distriubution begins, they'll not hold on to exclusive rights.

It's a pretty traditional deal, by the looks of it, which is sort of disappointing – the film is a cult classic waiting to be discovered, and seems like the perfect candidate for a Cuban-esque simultaneous release.

I was having dinner on Main Street and struck up a conversation with an acquistions manager for a major film studio. While we were waiting for our food, we chatted about which movies we'd seen and how we liked them (he raved about Little Miss Sunshine, which he'd just seen, and felt that A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints was uneven, and that the part with the kids was better than the part with the adults, which surprised him). I asked him what buzz he'd heard and what deals were being made. He told me "half the deals have already been done, and it's the first day of the festival", that his studio would be acquiring one or two, and that Little Miss Sunshine is being acquired "right now, actually" by Paramount for "some ridiculous sum of money".

The buzz on Little Miss Sunshine has been hot, so it's not surprising that it would be acquired early on. Stay tuned, as soon as we hear there's confirmation on the deal, we'll let you know.