In Contention

Tag: Fox Searchlight Pictures

  • Fox Searchlight picks up McQueen’s ‘Shame’

    I would say “Toldja!,” but I think that’s trademarked elsewhere. Nevertheless, as indicated here a few times, Fox Searchlight Pictures was pretty serious about “Shame” after the film bowed at Venice and Telluride on the same day over the weekend. It’s set to screen Sunday in Toronto, but ahead of that, the dependent has bravely swooped in and picked the title up. The press release, in part:

    Fox Searchlight Pictures Presidents Nancy Utley and Stephen Gilula announced today that the company has acquired U. S. rights to the intimate and provocative drama SHAME…

    “Fox Searchlight contacted us immediately after the screening in Telluride to tell us how much they loved the film. Their approach to marketing and distributing the film this year was incredibly detailed and impressive. We are excited to be working with them on a film that is sparking debate and a strong emotional reaction from audiences,” said Canning and Sherman.

    “This is a brave statement and an important move by Fox Searchlight.   I am very happy they came on board to release Shame in the U.S.  It’s great to be working with a team that is so passionate about cinema,” said McQueen.

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  • ‘Shame’ igniting pre-Toronto bidding war?

    I first reported out of Telluride that Fox Searchlight was looking like a good possibility to pick up Steve McQueen’s brilliant, stirring — and naughty — “Shame,” and expanded my thoughts on that possibility in Tuesday’s Off the Carpet column. Well, it looks like Deadline’s Mike Fleming is hearing similar things, and not just that Searchlight is in the mix, but that the film is kicking up a bidding war ahead of its Toronto bow. He writes:

    This year’s festival hasn’t started and already there are fireworks. Deadline broke news yesterday that Harvey Weinstein would start a VOD business, making the acquisitions market for fringe films more competitive; and last night, I heard that a bidding battle had already broken out for the Steve McQueen-directed Shame, which should be sold by the time it screens Sunday. Fox Searchlight is the favorite, Sony Pictures Classics is in the mix and I’ve heard that The Weinstein Company is hovering.

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  • OFF THE CARPET: And we’re off!

    This morning’s interview with “Into the Abyss” director Werner Herzog represented my last Telluride communique (though I guess I was already home) from this year’s 38th annual festivities. Five days, 18 posts, nine movies and three interviews. It was a dense sprint to start the race, and now, with Venice still in-progress and Toronto set to raise the curtain Thursday, we find ourselves in the thick of the season’s early breaths.

    Up in the Colorado mountains, the biggest takeaway was Alexander Payne’s “The Descendants.” Payne was highly visible throughout the festival, sometimes taking in six or seven movies a day, fielding compliments for his work and settling in to what has apparently become his favorite festival experience.

    His film first dropped on Thursday afternoon as a special invitation screening for press and patrons. That’s where most of the early word stemmed from as critics and bloggers (yours truly among them) raced back to offer up our thoughts on the director’s first film in seven years. But that’s not the story of that film’s life at Telluride. The story was its discovery for the rest of the attendees over the next four days.

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  • TELLURIDE: Sony Classics, IFC and Searchlight party into the night

    I opted out of tonight’s screening of “Butter” largely because — sorry to say — the Galaxy theater is just too cramped and uncomfortable and hot to fully enjoy a film experience. For me, anyway. I tend to be a furnace regardless, but they need to pump some AC into that joint. By some accounts, though, it was a delightful if somewhat skippable affair. Instead I took to the party circuit, as three studios chose Saturday to hold their talent-studded affairs.

    The night started with Sony Pictures Classics’ annual dinner gathering at La Marmotte. In attendance were “A Dangerous Method” scribe Christopher Hampton, “A Separation” writer/director Asghar Farhadi and “In Darkness” director Agnieszka Holland. Pay close attention to those last two, as they will no doubt figure into this year’s race for Best Foreign Language Film.

    I had a few choice moments with Hampton to discuss his collaboration with David Cronenberg. Unfortunately, I haven’t yet seen the film (Sunday night seems to make the most sense), but I did ask about his take on some reviewers (including our own Guy Lodge) preferring a bit of overt and edgy Cronenberg for a clearly sexual project. His response was that austerity was preferred considering a commitment to truth, and indeed, it seems to me a more cerebral approach would be, at the very least, more realistic for a film such as this. I’ll have an opinion soon enough.

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  • ‘Margaret’ finally goes free

    And you thought “The Tree of Life” had a protracted journey to its eventual release. It’s well over two years since I first wrote about the woes of Kenneth Lonergan’s chronically delayed sophomore feature, “Margaret,” and even then, it was a stale issue. The film was shot in 2005 — long before co-producers Sydney Pollack and Anthony Minghella passed on, long before leading lady Anna Paquin’s career was transformed by “True Blood” — and has languished in post-production purgatory (with occasional trips into legal hell) ever since.

    Indeed, the wait for “Margaret” simply to travel from set to screen has now exceeded the already frustrating five-year gap between Lonergan’s marvelous, Oscar-nominated debut, “You Can Count on Me,” and the production of his follow-up. Some blamed Lonergan’s perfectionism in the editing room, others an unruly, 168-page shooting script; whispered reports from test screenings weren’t overly encouraging. For better or worse, I had assumed by now, the film was lost to us.

    Happily, I was wrong. Making good on a brief but firm promise made a year ago, distributor Fox Searchlight has named a September 30 release date for the film.

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  • On the origins of ‘Martha Marcy May Marlene’

    Sean Durkin’s stunning debut feature “Martha Marcy May Marlene” has been running a steady marathon in terms of buzz-building ahead of its late-October release: first came breathless critical plaudits and the Best Director prize at Sundance in January, while a well-received appearance in the Un Certain Regard strand at Cannes kept things humming through the summer lull.

    Expect the acclaim to continue through the fall festival run: it’s booked for Toronto, though as Kris speculated last week, it’ll probably pop up in Telluride beforehand. (Finally, I’d count on a London Film Festival date in October.)

    The buzz isn’t there by sheer good fortune: as I wrote in my Cannes review, Durkin’s film is a startlingly assured and unsettling fusion of meticulous character study and full-throttle psychodrama, centered on a sharply etched breakout performance by Elizabeth Olsen that handily defies any pundits to define the young actress by her more famous twin sisters.

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  • Discussing the theology of ‘The Tree of Life’

    Fox Searchlight is really outdoing itself on “The Tree of Life.” When the studio picked up the title last year, I knew it was in caring hands. But I never really expected such pristine handling every step of the way.

    Tonight Searchlight held bi-coastal panel discussions with religious and non-religious leaders to discuss differing perspectives and interpretations of the theological themes within the film. “Insights, Inspirations & Impact” was the name of the program, and I was on hand for the Landmark Theatre discussion in West L.A. this evening.

    The panelists included Sister Rose Pacatte of the Pauline Center for Media Studies, Dr. Robert K. Johnston of the Fuller Theological Seminary and author of “Reel Spirituality: Theology and Film in Dialogue”; Rabbi David Wolpe of the Sinai Temple (a bit of a celebrity in his own right); Scott Young, executive director of the University Religious Conference at UCLA; Jihad Turk, director of religious affairs at the Islamic Center for Southern California; and Jim Hosney, Professor of Literature at the American Film Institute. The panel was moderated by spiritual author Erwin Raphael McManus.

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  • Malick goes deeper underground

    First up, some good news for our British readers: the distribution wrangles surrounding “The Tree of Life” have been resolved, and Fox Searchlight will bring the film to UK screens on July 8. Not much longer until you can join the conversation.

    Given Terrence Malick’s usual work rate, it feels almost perverse to begin talking about his next film while his current one is still in theaters, but that’s precisely what his new go-to cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki does in a fascinating Sight & Sound interview.

    So far we know little about the untitled work, already in post-production, beyond its all-star cast of Ben Affleck, Javier Bardem, Jessica Chastain and Rachels Weisz and McAdams, but Lubezki reveals this much: if you thought “The Tree of Life” was esoteric, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

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  • ‘The Descendants’ trailer

    As soon as the wheels started turning on 2011 Oscar season considerations, I was thinking Alexander Payne’s “The Descendants” could be a big player. Fox Searchlight could have another healthy slate this year and the studio has clearly caught and maintained its prestige stride. The trailer for the film dropped recently via Apple. Check it out by clicking the image below or watch an embed after the jump (and maybe clear off a spot for George Clooney in your Best Actor predictions).

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  • OSCAR TALK: Ep. 56 — Special Edition! — Cannes so far, ‘Tree of Life,’ Von Trier, taking the 2011 awards pulse

    Oscar TalkWelcome to Oscar Talk.

    In case you’re new to the site and/or the podcast, Oscar Talk is a weekly kudocast, your one-stop awards chat shop between yours truly and Anne Thompson of Thompson on Hollywood. The podcast is weekly, every Friday throughout the season, charting the ups and downs of contenders along the way. Plenty of things change en route to Oscar’s stage and we’re here to address it all as it unfolds.

    It has been nearly three months since we last got on the horn to talk the film wards landscape. We promised another dip during Cannes, so here we are. Today Anne and I are joined by Guy Lodge as the two of them have been working the Croisette all week. Let’s see what’s on the docket today…

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  • Fox to supply SAG with online screeners via iTunes

    Brave new world.  Though we all know it’s heading in this direction.  The trick will be getting the old stuck-in-their-ways types to learn how to work things, as always.  The press release, in part:

    Fox Filmed Entertainment (FFE) and iTunes are offering nearly 100,000 Screen Actors Guild (SAG) members Fox Searchlight Pictures’ 127 HOURS, BLACK SWAN and CONVICTION in HD from iTunes for viewing on their iPad, iPhone, iPod touch, Mac or PC, or with Apple TV on their HD TV. The films will be available to members from January 7-28 during the SAG awards consideration window…Fox is discussing a similar arrangement in the future with AMPAS, BAFTA and other organizations to implement this new way to present their films for consideration…

    “…while we would always prefer voters see films in theaters, we realize that is not always possible, so we wanted to make sure as many voters as possible have the opportunity to screen them…,” said Jim Gianopulos, Chairman and CEO of Fox Filmed Entertainment.

    [Photo: Fox Searchlight Pictures]

  • Annual Fox holiday bash draws filmmakers and talent

    20th Century Fox held its annual holiday party on the roof of the Thompson Hotel in Beverly Hills last night. It afforded a good opportunity to corral press members into a tight space with talent from the studio’s five awards season contenders.

    Newly tapped Oscar host Anne Hathaway was on hand (with “Love & Other Drugs” co-star Jake Gyllenhaal), but her co-host James Franco couldn’t make it.  I chatted briefly with “127 Hours” director Danny Boyle and screenwriter Simon Beaufoy, as well as “Never Let Me Go” composer Rachel Portman (who seemed quite prim and shy).  I know “Conviction” screenwriter Pamela Gray was making the rounds but I never got a chance to say hi.

    I did, however, finally meet one of the cinematographers from “127 Hours,” Enrique Chediak.  And as we were talking, a publicist tapped me on the shoulder and asked, “Would you like to talk to Anthony Dod Mantle?”  Of course I would, so I turned and staring back at me was Mantle live via Skype from Cape Town, South Africa, where he’s currently filming Pete Travis’s “Judge Dredd” reboot with Karl Urban.

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  • ‘The Tree of Life’ gets a poster… and a synopsis

    The pieces are gradually — very gradually — falling into place for Terrence Malick’s endlessly delayed “The Tree of Life.” First, new adoptive parent Fox Searchlight revealed a US release date of May 27, 2011. Now, courtesy of Collider, we have our first glimpse, albeit not of the finest quality, of a sales poster for the film. A bit of a half-and-halfer, as far as I’m concerned: the image is stark yet subtle, but the clunky typography carries a fan-made look to it.

    In addition to the poster, the studious Collider folks have also dug up a synopsis — one that’s been kicking around for a while, I hear — for those itching to know what the hell the film is actually about. It carries a spoiler warning, so I can’t say I’ve read it myself, but it’s also included after the jump if you feel so inclined. Now the only remaining question is: when, are where, are we finally going to clap eyes on it? Sundance, Berlin, Cannes, or none of the above?

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  • 10/27 OSCARWEB ROUND-UP: Sticking up for Swinton, AMPAS joins Twitter, 15 years of Fox Searchlight

    • Jeffrey Wells does his part to re-inject Tilda Swinton’s performance in “I Am Love” back into the Oscar conversation. [Hollywood Elsewhere]

    • The Academy is ready for its close-up — on Twitter! [Twitter]

    • Celebrating 15 years of Fox Searchlight Pictures. [/Film]

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  • ‘Tree of Life’ not waiting for Cannes?

    When Terrence Malick’s endlessly postponed “The Tree of Life” was finally handed over to Fox Searchlight and ruled a 2011 release, the conversation turned to which festival would get to host the film’s premiere. Many pundits (myself included) assumed that Cannes’s top dog status — in terms of both red-carpet allure and awards heft — would get it the gig, but if this tweet from the ever well-informed Cédric Succivalli is to be believed, we could be seeing it earlier than that.

    Succivalli writes that the film’s French distributor EuropaCorp has confirmed a February 23 release date, obviously ruling out a Cannes appointment three months later. That leaves only two major fests where it could potentially bow: Sundance (an idea Anne Thompson previously floated on Oscar Talk) and Berlin.

    Interestingly, the mid-February Berlinale was the festival of choice for both “The Thin Red Line” (which won the Golden Bear) and “The New World” (which played out of competition), even if neither film actually had its world premiere there. So it wouldn’t be entirely surprising to see “The Tree of Life” extend that relationship.

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  • OSCAR TALK: Ep. 31 – Searchlight’s busy season, ‘The Way Back’ and a not so brave new world for similar filmmaking, Toronto anticipations

    Oscar TalkWelcome to Oscar Talk.

    In case you’re new to the site and/or the podcast, Oscar Talk is a weekly kudocast, a one-stop awards chat shop between yours truly and Anne Thompson of Thompson on Hollywood. The podcast is weekly, every Friday throughout the season, charting the ups and downs of contenders along the way. Plenty of things change on route to Oscar’s stage and we’re here to address it all as it unfolds.

    Today Anne is calling from Toronto after a long journey from the Venice film festival, while I’m back home in LA following a great Telluride fest last weekend. We’re both able to talk from a more informed perspective on a number of the season’s hotly anticipated films, so let’s see what’s on the docket today…

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  • Searchlight acquires ‘Tree of Life’ for 2011 release

    Well, things just took a turn for the worse if you’re a Terrence Malick fan desperate to feast your eyes on his latest film, “The Tree of Life.” But they took a turn for the absolute best if you want the film to be taken care of by a studio with resources and savvy awards planning.

    Tuesday it was reported that Bill Pohlad was essentially looking to clean house at Apparition by dumping off the film and drastically cutting the staff.  Word was Pohlad was being shown to distributors, looking for a buyer.

    Well, he found one: Fox Searchlight, but the film will be released in 2011.  When you think about it, it’s a smart move to hold it.  They’re just getting into the project and would have only three months to really prime release and awards strategies.  And the studio already has four horses in the race this year as it is.  So, be patient, and maybe next year we’ll have a real stallion on our hands.

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  • ‘Conviction’ trailer

    One of the year’s obviously baity titles (which screened as early as the first quarter of the year for some) is Tony Goldwyn’s “Conviction” (formerly “Betty Anne Waters”).  The film stars Hilary Swank as Waters in the true story of a young woman who puts herself through law school to represent her wrongfully convicted brother (played by Sam Rockwell, and about whom I hear great things).  As for the trailer, thick accents?  Check.  “This is an important story” narrator?  Check.  Lofty music from multiple other weighty films?  Check.  Awards savvy studio?  Check.  (Searchlight also has Mark Romanek’s “Never Let Me Go” on the way, which also debuted a trailer earlier this week.)

    Watch the “Conviction” trailer, via Apple, by clicking on the image below, or check out the embed after the jump.

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