The heated bidding war for the actress's "gonzo" prop work ended at 4 a.m., leaving several rival studios empty-handed.
The overnight auction for the breakout star of Jesse Eisenberg’s The Debut concluded early Monday morning, with A24 shelling out a reported $12.5 million for domestic distribution rights to an unlit Pall Mall dangling from Julianne Moore’s lower lip. The boutique studio beat out aggressive late-night offers from Netflix and Apple, securing exclusive worldwide windows for the tobacco product’s upcoming press tour.
The prop emerged as the hottest package of the festival following a frenzied world premiere at the Chuck Jones Cinema. While Eisenberg's script centers on a nobody attacking a bit part, industry insiders were solely focused on Moore's decision to pair the unsmoked cigarette with a canvas contractor's toolbelt, a packaging move that immediately triggered a multi-studio bidding war in the theater lobby.
The tracking numbers on that tobacco are playing four quadrants. We haven't seen an inanimate object command this much raw screen presence in a prestige indie since the peach in Call Me By Your Name.
Eisenberg, marking his third feature as a director, originally scripted the cigarette to be lit, but sources close to the production say Moore called an audible on set to maximize the item's box-office appeal. The resulting faux-musical sequence—in which the Oscar winner aggressively adjusts a tape measure while refusing to ask for a lighter—has already generated massive awards buzz, with reps actively campaigning the toolbelt for Best Supporting Actor.
At press time, Searchlight Pictures was reportedly preparing an eight-figure counteroffer for exclusive theatrical rights to Moore’s exhausted sigh.