First Sundance aquisitions trickle in: Choke, Polanski

Although the prizes at Sundance are nice, the festival's ultimate goal for filmmakers is to get their movies picked up by distributors. The first couple of acquisitions have happened and, while there will certainly be more, let's take a moment and look at some of the films that will be hitting the arthouse circuit in the next six months:

Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired was picked up on Sunday (Jan. 20), which is extremely fast considering the festival began last Friday (Jan. 18). The feature is a documentary by Marina Zenovich, focusing on the director's rape case and the effects this has had on both Polanski and Samantha Grier. The film was acquired by HBO Documentary Films.

Another highly anticipated film, Clark Gregg's adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk's Choke, was acquired by Fox Searchlight for $5 million. The film centers on Victor Mancini, a sex-addict who runs a scam where he chokes himself nearly to death only to be saved by wealthy citizens who feel entitled to help him out in life. While Gregg's adaptation is supposed to be very different from Fight Club (not surprising considering it cost only $3.4 million to make), early reviews have been very positive.

What both films have in common is their extremely controversial nature, each taking on topics that studios would likely be afraid to touch. Other films that have been bought up so far include Nanette Burstein's Hamlet 2 and Henry Poole Is Here, though so far it's been a relatively slow year for acquisitions.

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