Deadline: Following a competitive bidding situation, Picturestart and Endeavor Content are set to co-finance and produce Cha Cha Real Smooth. Cooper Raiff, whose debut film Shithouse won the Grand Jury Prize at last year’s SXSW, will direct a script he has written. Raiff will star with Dakota Johnson.
Raiff will produce with Johnson and her TeaTime Pictures partner Ro Donnelly. Johnson this week wrapped Am I Ok?, which Picturestart financed, and produced with Johnson.
Endeavor Content is handling global sales with ICM Partners. Production is set to begin this summer.
In the film, Raiff takes a job as a bar mitzvah party starter — a guy who gets the young crowd dancing and having fun — while he separately strikes up a friendship with a young mother (Johnson) and her autistic daughter.
Jessica Switch and Julia Hammer are overseeing the project for Picturestart.
Raiff, who wrote, directed, produced, starred in and edited Shithouse, is repped by ICM Partners (which brokered the film deal) and Fusion Entertainment; Johnson, who will next be seen starring in Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Lost Daughter, is repped by WME, Untitled Entertainment and Ziffren Brittenham; Picturestart was repped by James McGough and Christina Tajalli, with P.J. Shapiro and Logan Clare on behalf of TeaTime Pictures.
