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Shudder Acquires Official Fantasia Festival Selection Glorious: "Shudder, AMC Network’s premium streaming service for horror, thriller and the supernatural, has acquired rights to Rebekah McKendry’s Glorious starring Ryan Kwanten and Oscar-winner J.K. Simmons. The film, an official selection of the Fantasia International Film Festival, will be available exclusively on Shudder in the US, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand on Thursday, August 18.

Said Craig Engler, general manager of Shudder, “With Glorious, Rebekah brings Lovecraftian horror to a place it’s never been seen before: a rest stop men’s room. She and her all-star cast have created an inventive and original cosmic horror that manages to be both darkly hilarious and profoundly personal.”

“For years, I had been searching for a project that would let me show my preferred artistic style - that would let me be absurdist, sardonic, transgressive, and weird. And Glorious gets really f’n weird.

Exclusive: Ryan Kwanten (True Blood) and Oscar winner J.K. Simmons (Whiplash) — also nominated this year for Being The Ricardos — have been set to star in supernatural horror movie Glorious, we can reveal.

The film, which is quietly nearing completion, has an intriguing premise. Kwanten plays a young man who is spiraling out of control after a bad breakup. His situation worsens after he finds himself locked inside a rest stop bathroom with a mysterious figure (J.K. Simmons) speaking to him from an adjacent stall. As he tries to escape, he realizes he is an unwilling player in a situation bigger than he could have imagined.

Amp International has launched sales on the project during the virtual EFM. Rebekah McKendry (All The Creatures Were Stirring) directs from a script by Todd Rigney, Joshua Hull and David Ian McKendry.

Producers are Bob Portal and Inderpal Singh from Amp, Joe Wicker and...

Updated with release date info: North of Two has set a December 7 release date for Nona, Kate Bosworth and Michael Polish’s feature film that the distributor acquired in May. The film, which puts a face to Central America’s sex trafficking industry, was produced under the couple’s Make Pictures Productions. It will be released beginning in Los Angeles and New York.

Nona tells the story of a girl from Honduras who meets a charming boy, Hecho who promises to get her safely to America to reunite with her mother. Instead, Nona faces a perilous journey when he doesn’t deliver on that promise. Nona — short for No Name — will deliver a message to change the way the world is dealing with sex trafficking.

“All of our North of Two filmmakers define the spirit, determination and grit that living North of Two means,” said CEO Mark Cartier. “Both Kate...

In today’s film news roundup, India Eisley-Mickey River drama “Adolescence” gets distribution and romance “Castle of Water” and horror short “They Hear It” are in development.

Distribution Rights

North of Two has acquired worldwide distribution rights to the dark coming-of-age drama “Adolescence,” starring India Eisley and Mickey River with Ashley Avis directing, Variety has learned exclusively.

The film was produced by Winterstone Pictures and is set to make its festival debut this fall. River portrays a shy teenager who falls in love with a beautiful, enigmatic runaway, played by Eisley, and is lured away from his bland life and into her vibrant and unpredictable world. He slips down a progressively dark path, filled with raging parties, drugs, and eventually heroin addiction.

The cast also includes Romeo Miller, Tommy Flanagan, Elisabeth Rohm, Jere Burns, Ever Carradine, Michael Milford, and Zac Brown Band member John Driskell Hopkins.

The film...