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Phase 4 Films has acquired U.S. and Canadian rights to The Crash Reel, which follows the different paths taken by childhood friends and rivals Shaun White and Kevin Pearce. The latter suffered a serious brain injury while training for their anticipated showdown at the Vancouver Olympics; White went on to gold medals and fame while Pierce struggled to recover. HBO, which helped finance the film, retains U.S. TV broadcast rights to the pic, which weaves 15 years of verite footage with a soundtrack that includes music from Chemical Brothers, Underworld, and Moby and chronicles Pearce’s long road to recovery. It premiered this year at Sundance. Oscar-nominated Lucy Walker (Waste Land, Devil’s Playground) directed, wrote the script with Pedro Kos and produced with Julian Cautherley. HBO’s Sheila Nevins executive produced. Phase 4 plans an early winter 2013 theatrical release. The deal was negotiated by Phase 4′s Larry Greenberg and Sam Posner with Andrew Herwitz at The Film Sales Company on behalf of the filmmakers.

The channel’s called AwesomenessX and it will offer “original sports, gaming, comedy, pranks and lifestyle content” for males in their teens and 20s, says the company that’s owned by DreamWorks Animation. As the Web destination grows it can “segment our audience so we can better target the programming and build communities around specific interest areas,” says its CEO Brian Robbins. The new channel will pick up some series from AwesomenessTV including The City – Basketball, Sk8 Spotterz, Blow Up Guys, That Was Awesome and How To Be Awesome. It will also launch new series including one that follows Winter X-Games gold medalist David Wise. Another will track “the first Chinese skaters and their friends as they begin to open the minds of the Chinese people to a sport that has always been looked down upon. Other shows will offer videos of the best game moves and photo shoots of swimsuit models. There’s also The Frank Dog (a dog that “breaks down the latest viral video, with a special dark place just for those adorable cat clips”),  Baby Gaga (a talking baby that “will break down his favorite baby videos from around the web and also give his hilarious opinion on what is really going on”) and Fingerlings (where finger puppets poke fun at “current pop culture moments”).