Brad Pitt’s Plan B Sets First-Look Film Deal With Warner Bros. Pictures (EXCLUSIVE)

By Matt Donnelly

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – Plan B Entertainment, the Oscar-winning production label co-founded by Brad Pitt, has signed a first-look feature deal with Warner Bros. Pictures.

The producer of Academy Award best picture winners “The Departed,” “12 Years a Slave,” and “Moonlight” will give Warner Bros. exclusive options on all film projects, returning to the studio home where it launched in 2002.

Warner Bros. Pictures will also handle global distribution of Plan B titles under the terms of the agreement. The move to WB comes after a three-year first look with Megan Ellison’s Annapurna Pictures. 

The deal was announced by Plan B partner Pitt and co-presidents Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner, with Warner Bros. Pictures Group chairman Toby Emmerich and WB production and development president Courtenay Valenti.

“Brad, Jeremy and Dede are extraordinary filmmakers,” Emmerich and Valenti said in a statement. “Their track record of excellence speaks for itself. We are so excited to collaborate with them on the dynamic and singular movies for which they are known.”

The agreement represents a doubling-down on Plan B’s vision of substantive, theatrical moviegoing experiences, made with top filmmakers and, often, premium intellectual property.

Among the label’s notable library titles are “The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford,” “The Tree of Life,” “World War Z,” The Normal Heart,” “The Big Short,” “If Beale Street Could Talk,” “and “Vice.”

The company is currently working on Jon Stewart’s political drama  “Irresistible,” the Miranda July project “Kajillionaire” at Focus Features, and Lee Isaac Chung’s “Minari,” winner of the 2020 Sundance Film Festival U.S. dramatic grand jury prize, to be released by A24.