‘Collide’ Backers Hope to Cut Ties with Relativity

The Hollywood company backing “Collide,” a thriller directed by Eran Creevy and starring Nicholas Hoult, Felicity Jones and Anthony Hopkins, is urging a bankruptcy judge to let it part ways with Relativity Media LLC, which filed for bankruptcy in July.

In court papers filed Wednesday with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan, IM Global Film Fund LLC says Relativity hasn’t held up its end of a distribution deal, which includes spending at least $25 million to promote the film and ensuring its release on more than 2,000 theater screens.

A spokesman for Relativity declined to comment Thursday.

IM Global entered into an exclusive licensing deal with Relativity last year, court papers show.  The film, formerly known as “Autobahn,” was due to be released Oct. 30.

But the company says Relativity has done nothing to market the film or to prepare for its release and has asked Judge Michael Wiles to scrap the deal, allowing it to negotiate a new contract with another distributor as quickly as possible. He’ll hold a hearing on the request later this month.

IM Global said it simply can’t wait for Relativity’s assets to be taken over by a new owner at a bankruptcy court-supervised auction scheduled for next month.

If it isn’t allowed to terminate the agreement with Relativity, IM Global said a tangled web of contracts orchestrating the film’s release both in the U.S. and abroad could fall apart, threatening millions of dollars in guaranteed distribution proceeds.

“Millions of dollars are at stake and contractual obligations with third parties are at risk,” the company said.

IM Global owes $17 million it borrowed to produce the film, backed in part by those guaranteed proceeds. According to court papers, “Collide” cost about $30 million to produce.

IM Global also said it is worried about the long-term impact of a potential snafu on its relationships with foreign distributors, which rely heavily on a wide release of the film in the U.S.

If the film is released in foreign markets before the U.S., which could happen if its U.S. debut is delayed for too long, IM Global said pirated copies could leak back across borders, “severely damaging the profitability of the film.”

Write to Tom Corrigan at [email protected]