Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden's Sugar, the follow-up to their critically acclaimed Half Nelson, has finally been picked up for distribution. Variety's Mike Jones reports the film has been acquired for theatrical distribution by Sony Pictures Classics, which seems like a good fit for the film. HBO Films, which financed the film, retains television rights.

Sugar, which premiered at Sundance earlier this year, felt at the time like a tough sell after Half Nelson; it still does. The film, which is subtitled, tells the tale of a young baseball star from the Dominican Republic who crashes after getting moved up to the big leagues. It's really very much a coming-of-age kind of tale about this young boy who grew up poor but talented, always believing baseball to be his one ticket out.

With Ryan Gosling in the lead role, Half Nelson wowed audiences and even nabbed the actor an Oscar nomination. Now screenwriters Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden are finishing up their second feature film, Sugar, which Erik Davis wrote about back in March. Now The Hollywood Reporter has posted that HBO Films has signed onto the sweet team to finance and distribute the film, which will celebrate its world premiere next month at the snowy Sundance Film Festival in Joseph Smith country. HBO is currently trying to figure out if they want to debut the film in the network, or in theaters through Picturehouse. (This will be determined by reaction at Sundance.)

While the straight-to-television release might sound surprising, I imagine that's because there's no big name like Gosling starring in it. With Fleck and Boden sharing the directorial chair, Sugar is a "fish-out-of-water" story about a man named Miguel Sugar Santos, "a Dominican baseball prospect who is sent to play in a small Midwestern town after being scouted in his home country." Santos is being played by newbie actor Algenis Perez Soto, and he's joined by names such as Richard Bull (Nels Oleson on Little House on the Prairie) and Michael Gaston (Jericho).

While we might not get a chance to slump into those theater chairs with our popcorn and watch Sugar, we'll see the duo's work again on the big screen soon enough. As Erik posted in May, the team is adapting Special Topics in Calamity Physics for Miramax, and It's Kind of a Funny Story for Paramount.

The creative team behind the indie smash hit Half Nelson (the one where Ryan Gosling plays a crack-addicted history teacher) have decided to go back to school ... again; this time, according to Variety, Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden will adapt Marisha Pessl's novel Special Topics in Calamity Physics, with Fleck attached to direct and Boden on to exec produce. Pic marks the third project the duo have taken on since first making a splash with Nelson last year; prior to their work on Calamity Physics, Fleck and Boden will co-direct Sugar (based on a script penned by Fleck) in which a Dominican baseball prospect attempts to fight his way to the majors through the U.S. minor league system. Apart from that, they will also adapt and direct another high school-esque dramedy; Ned Vizzini's It's Kind of a Funny Story for Paramount.

Calamity Physics tells of a high school senior who, after spending each of her first three years in a different town with her highly eccentric on-the-go father, finally looks forward to settling down for a full senior year in a North Carolina high school. Eventually she befriends a group of fellow students (and geniuses) referred to as the Bluebloods, and from there it appears a teacher is killed and, before we know it, we're right smack in the middle of a murder-mystery. So much for that normal senior year, huh? Miramax Films and producer Scott Rudin will shovel this one out. Not sure which project they'll take on after Sugar, but having loved Half Nelson, I can't wait to see what these two have in store for us down the line.

Last season, Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden had a career year -- the kind most young filmmakers dream about when they're first starting out. Thanks, in part, to a superb Oscar-nominated performance by Ryan Gosling, their Half Nelson went from tiny indie film to major awards contender in the span of only a few months. Now, Fleck and Boden are looking for another break-out performance -- this time, they're heading to the Dominican Republic to find a star. The two will write and direct Sugar, to be produced by Journeyman Pictures and Hunting Lane Films (the two shingles behind Nelson), with HBO Films possibly interested in coming onboard as well.

Pic will delve into the world of minor league baseball, shown through the eyes of a young Dominican prospect snatched from his home country and brought to the United States to play ball. Though the film will be based on a fictional character named Miguel "Sugar" Santos, there's no doubt Fleck and Boden will look to expose the often shady world of baseball scouting by taking an innocent kid and dropping him in a cutthroat, competitive environment. With production set to begin later this summer, Fleck and producers are currently searching for their cast (which could include nonpros) and scouting locations in the Midwest and Dominican. Aside from Sugar, Fleck and Boden have also signed on to write and direct It's Kind of a Funny Story for Paramount.

Not many films take us inside the world of minor league baseball, especially from the vantage point of a foreigner asked to compete with and against a group of guys who have been training their entire lives to land a spot on one of these teams. Fleck chose a very claustrophobic style for Half Nelson, partly because the majority of scenes took place indoors -- thus, I'll be curious to see if he spreads things out a bit now, utilizing the open-aired environment of a baseball diamond as his canvas. Needless to say, I cannot wait for this one.