Olivia Colman-Walton Goggins Drama Thriller ‘Them That Follow’ Acquired By 1091 Media’s The Orchard – Sundance

EXCLUSIVE: In its second pickup at the Sundance Film Festival this year, the new Orchard Film Group under new owners 1091 Media, has taken North American rights to Britt Poulton and Dan Madison Savage’s Appalachian thriller Them That Follow. 

The pic was bought in a competitive situation. Danielle DiGiacomo, VP Film/TV Acquisitions for The Orchard negotiated the deal with CAA Media Finance.

Starring Oscar-nominated The Favourite actress Olivia Colman, Them That Follow follows members of an isolated community of Pentecostal snake handlers led by Pastor Lemuel (Walton Goggins) who risk their lives to attest themselves before God. Lemuel’s daughter Mara (Alice Englert) prepares for her wedding to the young believer her father has singled out for her under the watchful eye of Hope (Colman), while scrambling to hide a secret that has the potential to drive her father’s church to ruin. Kaitlyn Dever, Jim Gaffigan, Thomas Mann and Lewis Pullman also star. The pic marks Poulton and Savage’s feature directorial debut.

Snake handlers are spiritual renegades belonging to an obscure sect of American Pentecostalism: part of a century-old tradition of worshiping with venomous snakes during church services. Seeing themselves as the vanguards of salvation in a morally bankrupt world, believers put their lives on the line, each and every week, to prove themselves before God.

Them That Follow was produced by Bradley Gallo, Michael A. Helfant for Amasia, and Gerard Butler, Alan Siegel and Danielle Robinson for G-BASE.

Over the weekend 1091 Media’s Orchard acquired Frédéric Tcheng’s documentary Halston about the famed 1970s/80s fashion designer. Orchard’s film Birds of Passage plays at Sundance this week, and opens theatrically on February 13.

On the first day of Sundance, it was announced that 1091 Media was acquiring the film and TV division of The Orchard as the former parent company opted to focus on their music operations going forward.