The Orchard nabs Taylor Schilling-Pat Healy comedy “Take Me”

PanARMENIAN.Net - The Orchard has acquired rights to the Taylor Schilling-Pat Healy comedy “Take Me”, which will premiere next month at the Tribeca Film Festival, Variety reveals.

Healy will star alongside “Orange Is the New Black’s” Schilling, in addition to making his feature directorial debut. The Duplass Brothers serve as executive producers while Mel Eslyn and Sev Ohanian will produce.

The Orchard will handle a theatrical and digital release in May, followed by a worldwide streaming release by Netflix later this year. The acquisition marks an ongoing relationship with the Duplass Brothers and The Orchard as part of an output deal. The Orchard has worldwide theatrical, digital rental, sales, cable/satellite VOD, airline, DVD, and soundtrack rights.

In the film, Healy’s character jumps at the chance to enter the “boutique simulated abduction business” when a mysterious caller contracts him for a weekend kidnapping with a handsome payday.

Mike Makowsky wrote the screenplay. He had two screenplays featured on last year’s Black List: “Bad Education” and “I Think We’re Alone Now.”

The filmmaking team of “Take Me” recently set up a website promoting the faux-company “Kidnap Solutions LLC,” which claims to be a form of fully immersive exposure therapy that has been known to cure alcoholism, drug addiction, overeating, nicotine addiction, sex/love addiction, and bad habits.

Healy has appeared in more than 40 feature films, including “Cheap Thrills,” “Compliance,” and “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.” His TV credits include “Ray Donovan,” “How to Get Away With Murder,” and “Six Feet Under.” Healy has authored a dozen feature film screenplays, including the Black List scripts “Strange Skies” and “Snow Ponies.”

“I was too lazy and/or afraid to direct a feature film for years until I read Mike Makowsky’s inspired script,” he said. “I knew I had to do it. Thankfully Jay, Mark, and Taylor agreed and gave me the chance to make this crazy thing. It’s the weird/funny movie I hope audiences would expect I’d unleash on the world.”