News

“Pet Shop Days,” the directorial debut from Hollywood scion Olmo Schnabel, has been acquired by Utopia for theatrical distribution in North America.

A Venice Film Festival premiere that just lit up SXSW, the provocative coming-of-age film stars stars Jack Irv, Dario Yazbek Bernal, Willem Dafoe, Peter Sarsgaard and Emmanuelle Seigner. Martin Scorsese, Jeremy O. Harris and Michel Franco (“New Order”) all serve as executive producers.

Bernal (Netflix’s “House of Flowers”) stars as Alejandro, the son of a Mexican crime lord on the run from his past in New York City. There he meets Jack (Irv), a 20-something living with his wealthy parents Francis (Dafoe) and Diana (Seigner) while working in a pet shop. In a haze of drugs and sex, Alejandro seduces Jack and drags him into the city’s criminal underbelly.

Shot on 35mm film by Hunter Zimny, the film generated buzz out of Venice for its daring lead performances.

Utopia will launch worldwide sales at EFM on Julie Pacino’s directorial debut I Live Here Now, which has wrapped production and features a cast of Lucy Fry, Madeline Brewer (The Handmaid’sTale), comedian Matt Rife (Natural Selection), and Sheryl Lee (Twin Peaks).

The psychological horror follows a woman (Fry) who finds herself trapped in a remote hotel where the violent echoes of her past come alive, blurring the lines between her darkest nightmares and the waking world.

“I am thrilled to unveil this deeply personal project with Utopia,” said Pacino. “I Live Here Now explores fear and discomfort through the...

Exclusive: Jermaine Fowler (Sorry to Bother You) has wrapped production on a new psychological thriller directed by Steve Pink (Hot Tub Time Machine).

Rounding out the cast of the pic, shot under a SAG-AFTRA Interim Agreement, are James Morosini (I Love My Dad), Pauline Chalamet (The Sex Lives of College Girls), Edy Modica (Jury Duty), Rob Yang (Succession), and Brendan Hunt (Ted Lasso). The production companies involved are Hurley/Pickle Productions (The Wheel), Phiphen (Butcher’s Crossing), Range Media Partners, and Gummy Films (What Doesn’t Float).

Written by Sam Johnson and Connor Diedrich, the film follows Allen Perkins (Fowler) through various twists and turns on a descent into darkness as he hosts his old college pals for the weekend. Producers included Josh Jason and Molly Gilula of Hurley/Pickle Productions, along with Molly Conners of Phiphen, Aj Bourscheid & Austin Lantero of Range Media Partners, and Chalamet, Rachel Walden, and Luca Balser of Gummy Films.

David Byrne met A24’s young fans as the Talking Heads Stop Making Sense is set to gross $800,673 from 264 Imax screens in North America this weekend. Its cumulative gross of $1.43 million includes Thursday screenings and a live event at TIFF for this remastered version of the 1984 Jonathan Demme-directed concert film ranked by critics as one of the best ever.

Nearly 60% of the audience was under 35 — not alive when the movie came out — and more than half said it was their first time seeing the film.

Stop Making Sense ran on a limited schedule with less than two shows on average at each location, and many screenings turning into dance parties. It expands nationwide next weekend to about 500 theaters and will play out like a regular release — an unusually long tail for a 40-year-old film. A footprint of theaters plans to keep playing it on weekends after its run.

The...

For as long as New York City has been the de facto epicenter of American independent film, there have been scenes where a child that’s wise beyond their years strikes up a bond with a raggedy man on the street who knows a thing or two about life. It’s a quintessential stock scene that highlights everything about New York that filmmakers find so inspiring — the eat-or-be-eaten lifestyle forces everyone to mature and turn into philosophers, but the urban density simultaneously forces people to interact and see each other as humans.

It’s also a surefire sign that you’re watching a New York Movie, a category that only encompasses a small percentage of films that are set in New York. The iconography of directors like Woody Allen and Martin Scorsese has permeated culture so deeply that it’s become a rite of passage for certain filmmakers to recreate...

Stop Making Sense, the remastered concert film that sowed delight at TIFF, opens on 300 Imax screens in the U.S., Canada, U.K. and Ireland. Locations Stateside number 260 ahead of a nationwide release next week.

The 1984 Talking Heads extravaganza from Jonathan Demme is presented in its new iteration by A24 — meaning the decades-old movie can now extend its reach to a new, younger audience that is A24’s core fan base. Opening numbers are hard to gauge since there aren’t many comps but there are parties, discos, stars and sellouts with film looking at about $1.5 million, including Thursday previews.

A 40th anniversary large-format special premiere screening at the Toronto Film Festival earlier this month had people dancing in the aisles and broke Imax records. It was the company’s highest grossing live event, earning $640.8k and selling out 25 screens across 165 Imax locations in North America and the BFI Imax in London.

“An interim agreement allows microbudget movies to see the light of day,” star-producer says.

Circle Collective’s independent anthology What Doesn’t Float has secured a SAG-AFTRA interim agreement, paving the way for star-producer Pauline Chalamet (Sex Lives Of College Girls) to promote ahead of the imminent release in New York and Los Angeles.

Chalamet will do press next week to support the releases in New York on September 22 at Roxy Cinema and Los Angeles on October 6 at Brain Dead Studios. It is a timely boost for arthouse distributor Circle Collective, which has already virtually sold out the New York opening day.

The North American box office has been a challenge to track the past couple of years, first with movie theaters shuttering along with almost everything else due to the Covid pandemic, and then in 2023, just when thing were returning to normal, a pair of Hollywood strikes has further complicated studios’ release-date strategies.

Still, as of last weekend of August, the 2023 domestic box office is already past $6.6 billion in grosses, up 25% over the same frame a year ago, and there are still busy festival and holiday seasons to help boost awareness — and attendance.

Check out 2023’s latest U.S release date schedule for the major and specialty studios below and keep checking back for the latest updates.

September Friday, September 1

The Equalizer 3

Sony Pictures (Wide)

The Good Mother

Vertical Entertainment (Moderate)

Cheta Singh

Seven Colors America (Limited)

Don’t Look Away

Level 33 (Limited)

Ernest & Celestine: A Trip to Gibberitia

Gkids...

Exclusive: Arthouse distro Circle Collective has acquired worldwide rights to Luca Balser’s (Uncut Gems) NYC anthology film What Doesn’t Float, starring and produced by Pauline Chalamet (Sex Lives of College Girls), and shot by DPs Sean Price Williams (Good Time) and Hunter Zimny (Good Time).

The film is set to make its world premiere at the Lighthouse Film Festival this month and will be released theatrically in the U.S. from September with an international fest tour planned in the fall/winter.

What Doesn’t Float stars Chalamet, genre filmmaker and actor Larry Fessenden (Depraved), and Keith Poulson (Pvt Chat) as New Yorkers at their wit’s end. Script comes from Shauna Fitzgerald and Rachel Walden (Funny Pages) also produces.

The project is the first from NYC-based production company Gummy Films, headed by Chalamet, Balser and Walden who last month attended the Cannes Film Festival with their short film Lemon Tree...