EXCLUSIVE: Florence Pugh fantasy drama The Midnight Library, which will be directed by Lion filmmaker Garth Davis, is being chased by multiple studios in what will likely be the biggest deal out of this year’s Cannes market.

We understand Paramount, Focus and Sony are in the mix for domestic and select international markets on the circa $70M movie, with producer-financier Studiocanal, which is selling the movie, expected to hold onto its territories. This will likely be a territory split akin to the deal the Euro studio struck on Paddington In Peru. A winner should become clear in coming days.

In the big-canvas “love letter to life,” Pugh will play Nora Seed, who finds herself in a library between life and death with the chance to experience all the potential lives she could have lived.

Deadline revealed the biggest domestic deal of the Cannes market so far in the shape of Clockwork’s pact for The Brigands Of Rattlecreek and the biggest overall deal of the market so far with Amazon’s early 20s international deal for Pumping Black. When it makes, The Midnight Library deal will comfortably surpass those and likely pushes past $30M.

Studiocanal and Blueprint Pictures are behind the project. The regular collaborators optioned Matt Haig’s popular novel, which has a screenplay by Olivier Award winner Laura Wade (Rivals) and Tony nominee Nick Payne (We Live In Time).

First published by Canongate in 2020, the book has sold 15 million copies and has been translated into 56 languages. We’ve heard good things about the project from buyers on the ground in Cannes. Haig will executive-produce.

The plan is for the project to enter pre-production this fall with shoot at the start of 2027. Studiocanal is expected to release theatrically across their territory footprint of the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Benelux, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. It’s the biggest-budget project the Euro studio has mounted in some time.

Graham Broadbent and Pete Czernin of Blueprint will produce with Anita Overland and Pugh. Blueprint’s Ben Knight and Diarmuid McKeown executive-produce. Anna Marsh, Ron Halpern and Dan MacRae executive produce for Studiocanal.

Studiocanal and the studios declined to comment.