Magnolia acquires Tribeca closer “Freakonomics”

Weeks before “Freakonomics” is scheduled to close this year’s Tribeca Film Festival, Magnolia Pictures announces that it has acquired all North American rights to the highly anticipated documentary.

“Freakonomics” adapts the bestselling non-fiction book by University of Chicago economist Steven Levitt and New York Times journalist Stephen J. Dubner. Like the book, the film examines human behavior and popular culture as it relates to economics.

But the film is special for its “dream team” of cinematic collaborators. The film is divided up between five filmmakers, including Academy Award winner Alex Gibney (“Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room,” “Casino Jack and the United States of Money”), Academy Award nominees Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing (“Jesus Camp”), Academy Award nominee Morgan Spurlock (“Super Size Me”), Eugene Jarecki (“Why We Fight”) and Seth Gordon (“The King of Kong”).

A release gives more details about the film, explaining that Gibney takes a look at the crumbling façade of Sumo wrestling; Spurlock offers up a revealing angle on the repercussions of baby names; Grady and Ewing conjure an eye-opening profile of underachieving kids incentivized to learn with cash; and Jarecki investigates an unsettling theory to explain why crime rates dramatically dropped in the early ’90s.

“As huge fans of the book, the film version of ‘Freakonomics’ is something that we’ve been excited about ever since we caught wind of it,” said Magnolia President Eamonn Bowles. “The fact that this dream project is being realized by the ‘dream team’ of documentary filmmakers makes this a major film event. We couldn’t be more thrilled.”

Magnolia is planning a fall theatrical release for the film.