DNEG Joins Francesco Lucente's Fantasy Epic "Sinbad"

Visual effects house DNEG has joined the fantasy adventure "Sinbad" as co-financier and producer, Variety reported. The deal was unveiled ahead of TIFFCOM, the film market held alongside the Tokyo International Film Festival.

A co-financier puts up part of the money needed to make a film. A producer helps organise the project from start to finish. DNEG is best known to cinema audiences for the effects work it does on other people's films. It is the visual effects house on Christopher Nolan's "The Odyssey," and its teams have won eight Oscars for visual effects. Its credits include "Inception," "Interstellar," "Blade Runner 2049," "Dune" and "Dune: Part Two."

Francesco Lucente wrote the script for "Sinbad" and will direct it. Pre-production, the stage where the crew, locations and schedule are fixed before filming, is due to begin in early 2027. Delivery, the date the finished film is handed over, is set for March 2029.

The film's international sales are being handled by Cappu Films, a company based in Hong Kong. Sales agents sell a film to cinemas and streaming services country by country, and often do so long before a camera rolls. Cappu first showed the project to buyers at the Busan market in South Korea.

According to Variety, Cappu's sales rights cover parts of Asia, Europe, the Commonwealth of Independent States (the former Soviet republics), Latin America, the Caribbean, the Middle East and Africa, along with some Pacific island markets. The named territories include China, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, German-speaking Europe, Spain, Portugal, Turkey and Eastern Europe.

Cappu and Lucente have worked together before. The company handled sales on his fantasy feature "Starbright," which stars Ted Levine, John Rhys-Davies and Diego Boneta. Lucente also directed the drama "Badland."

Cappu is also handling international sales on "A Grim Life," a supernatural thriller starring Joseph Mazzello. The story is set at the Cecil Hotel in Los Angeles.

For moviegoers, the news is a long way off. "Sinbad" has no release date yet, and the schedule it has so far covers production and delivery only. What it does show is how a big film gets built: a writer-director, a sales company testing the market at festivals, and an effects company putting money and craft into the project before the first frame is shot.