Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions has taken all rights in international English-speaking territories, Latin America and other European markets to “The End of the Tour,” starring Jason Segel and Jesse Eisenberg and directed by James Ponsoldt.
Fortitude International is handling international sales at the European Film Market. UTA and WME are handling domestic sales.
Mark Manuel and Ted O’Neal’s Kilburn Media came on board last week as full financiers of the drama. Manuel and O’Neal will produce with Anonymous Content’s David Kanter and Matt DeRoss along with James Dahl of Modern Man Films.
Segel will portray author David Foster Wallace, who’s on the 1996 book tour for “Infinite Jest,” accompanied by David Lipsky (played by Eisenberg), a writer on assignment from Rolling Stone magazine, as friendship, jealousy and competition emerge between the two. Wallace committed suicide in 2008.
Ponsoldt (“The Spectacular Now”) will direct from a script by playwright Donald Margulies, who adapted Lipsky’s book “Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself: A Road Trip With David Foster Wallace.” Ponsoldt worked at Rolling Stone while he was in college.
Anonymous Content’s Paul Green will exec produce the film, which is scheduled to start production shortly.
The deal was brokered by Michael Helfand, Jonathan Freedberg and Chan Phung of Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions and by Nadine de Barros of Fortitude International.
