Cannes animated comedy “Jim Queen” has picked up a new batch of international sales after screening at the Busan International Film Festival, its first outing in Asia.
Global Constellation, the sales arm of pan-European studio Vuelta, has closed deals with Prorom for the Czech and Slovak Republics, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria. HBO has secured first-window pay-TV and SVOD rights in Eastern Europe. Elsewhere, Folkets Bio has taken Sweden, AS Fidalgo has Norway and Films4You has Portugal, while CDI/LAT-E has acquired Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and Paraguay. A South Korean deal is now in negotiation.
The new territories add to earlier sales to I Wonder Pictures (Italy), O’Brother (Benelux), Capelight Pictures (Germany), Praesens (Switzerland), Polyfilm (Austria), Elastica/Filmin (Spain), Lev Cinema (Israel), Madman (Australia and New Zealand), Photon Films (Canada), Pandora Filmes/Belas Artes Grupo (Brazil), Pimienta Films (Mexico) and Creative Century (Taiwan). Creative Century Distribution will open the film in Taiwanese cinemas on Oct. 23.
For the U.S., Global Constellation is weighing several offers, with a release set for 2027. Jordan Firstman and Matteo Lane were recently unveiled as the English-language voices of Jim and Lucien.
Set in Paris, the story centers on Jim, a gym-obsessed influencer and the most desired man on the city’s gay scene. His status collapses overnight when a strange virus called Heterosis begins converting gay men to heterosexuality. Dropped by his followers and shunned by his circle, Jim has only Lucien on his side, a skinny and fiercely loyal admirer. The pair head into the Marais in search of a renegade doctor who may hold a cure.
The film world premiered at Cannes, where festival chief Thierry Frémaux called the screening “one of the most beautiful in the festival’s history in terms of atmosphere.” The Jokers Films opened it in France on June 17, and it entered the box office chart at No. 3 behind “Toy Story 5” and “Backrooms.” It has since passed 385,000 admissions there and taken more than $3 million.
Reviewing the film for Variety, Guy Lodge wrote: “The humor and storytelling can be likened to ‘South Park’ in their senseless, fast-moving escalation toward absurdity, and the broadly cartoonish animation style – clean lines, popping eyes, flat expanses of color in ’80s mall-decor shades of pink, lilac and spearmint – is a running reminder of just how seriously to take the whole enterprise.”
Nguyen and Athané, both Gobelins graduates, co-wrote the screenplay with Simon Balteaux and Brice Chevillard. Between them they have worked on series, games and features including “The Summit of the Gods,” “Ernest & Celestine,” “The Big Bad Fox and Other Tales,” “The Swallows of Kabul,” “The Rabbi’s Cat” and “The Red Turtle.”
David Alric and Arthur Delabays produced for Paris-based adult animation outfit Bobbypills. The studio’s credits include James Gunn’s DC Studios series “Creature Commandos,” “Captain Laserhawk: A Blood Dragon Remix,” a Netflix series made in partnership with Ubisoft Film & Television, and the Netflix titles “Crisis Jung” and “Vermin.” Umedia (“The Count of Monte Cristo,” “The Night of the Zoocalypse”) co-produced, with backing from Eurimages, the CNC’s Avance sur recettes, the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, the Charente department and the Réunion region.
Global Constellation was formed in 2025 by combining London’s Film Constellation with Munich-based Global Screen.