Image Acquires DEVIL'S KNOT with Colin Firth & Reese Witherspoon

Image Entertainment, an RLJ Entertainment (NASDAQ: RLJE) brand, acquires Worldview Entertainment's crime thriller DEVIL'S KNOT following its world premiere at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival. Directed by Academy Award nominated Director Atom Egoyan (The Sweet Hereafter), the film stars Academy Award winners Colin Firth (The King's Speech) and Reese Witherspoon (Walk the Line) as well as Academy Award nominee Amy Ryan (Gone Baby Gone), Golden Globe nominee Mireille Enos ("The Killing") and Stephen Moyer (HBO's "True Blood"). DEVIL'S KNOT is scheduled for a Q2 2014 release. The announcement was made today by Image Entertainment's Chief Acquisition Officer, Bill Bromiley.

"Reese Witherspoon delivers a stellar, emotional performance, displaying her versatility by transforming herself as a vulnerable mother trying to make sense of her son's death," says Bromiley. "Her commitment to the role was exceptional, proving once again why she is one of Hollywood's best leading actors."

Based on the true crime book, Devil's Knot: The True Story of the West Memphis Three by Mara Leveritt, DEVIL'S KNOT tells the compelling story of three teenagers accused of the brutal 1993 murder of three 8-year old boys in Memphis, Ark. - two of them sentenced to life imprisonment and one to death. The film explores the lives of deeply misunderstood outsiders, their families and communities, and their darkest fantasies. The conviction of the West Memphis Three - Damien Echols, Jesse Misskelley, Jr., and Jason Baldwin - riled the American justice system, shocked a tightly knit religious town and outraged the nation.

DEVIL'S KNOT was written by Paul Harris Boardman and Scott Derrickson and produced by Boardman, Elizabeth Fowler, Richard Saperstein, Clark Peterson and Christopher Woodrow of Worldview Entertainment.

The deal was negotiated by Mark Ward, Jess De Leo and Bromiley on behalf of RLJ Entertainment, and by CAA and WME on behalf of Worldview Entertainment and the filmmakers.

The compelling tale of the West Memphis Three also inspired a trilogy of HBO documentaries known as Paradise Lost, which chronicled the arrest, 18-year imprisonment and eventual release of the three men. The final film in the series received a 2012 Primetime Emmy Award for Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking and a 2012 Academy Award nomination for Best Documentary.

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