Distributor Fox Searchlight has made two new acquisitions from the 2014 Sundance Film Festival.
First, they picked up the Mike Cahill’s I Origins. Director Mike Cahill worked with Fox Searchlight for his first film, Another Earth. I Origins stars Brit Marling and Michael Pitt and follows a molecular biologist (Pitt) whose study of the human eye points to evidence with far-reaching implications about our scientific and spiritual beliefs. Cahill’s previous feature was an interesting character study with a breakthrough performance from Marling and should be interesting if they can capture that same spirited collaboration once again. Our own Dan Schindel had an opportunity to view I Origins during Sundance and wasn’t too enamored with it. Fox Searchlight intends to release the picture later this year.
Fox Searchlight also picked up Calvary, which reunites John Michael McDonagh and Brendan Gleeson after previously having worked on The Guard. The comedic drama stars Gleeson as Father James, a pastor who while helping others is also struggling with his own demons. He tries his best to comfort his fragile daughter (Kelly Reilly) and provide support to the comically absurd problems of the members of his church. Fox Searchlight intends to release Calvary later this year.
I Origins Press Release:
Fox Searchlight Pictures Presidents Stephen Gilula and Nancy Utley announced today that the company has acquired worldwide rights to the existential drama I ORIGINS. Directed and written by Mike Cahill, I ORIGINS is his second feature following ANOTHER EARTH which Fox Searchlight acquired at Sundance in 2011. The film stars Michael Pitt, Brit Marling, Astrid Bergès-Frisbey, Steven Yeun and Archie Panjabi with Cahill, Hunter Gray and Alex Orlovsky serving as producers. The film is scheduled to be released in 2014.
Written and directed by Mike Cahill, and starring Michael Pitt, Brit Marling, and Astrid Bergès-Frisbey, I ORIGINS follows a molecular biologist whose study of the human eye points to evidence with far reaching implications about our scientific and spiritual beliefs.
Calvary Press Release:
Fox Searchlight Pictures Presidents Nancy Utley and Stephen Gilula announced today that the company has acquired U.S. rights as well as select international territories to the blackly comedic drama CALVARY. Written and directed by John Michael McDonagh, CALVARY’s ensemble cast includes Brendan Gleeson, Chris O’Dowd, Kelly Reilly, Aidan Gillen, Dylan Moran, Isaach De Bankolé, M. Emmet Walsh, Marie-Josée Croze, Domhnall Gleeson, David Wilmot, Pat Shortt, Gary Lydon, Killian Scott, Orla O’Rourke, Owen Sharpe and David McSavage. The film was produced by Reprisal Films’ Chris Clark and Flora Fernandez Marengo and Octagon’s James Flynn, and is an Irish Film Board and BFI presentation in association with Lypsync Productions. The film is scheduled to be released in 2014.
CALVARY’s Father James (Brendan Gleeson) is a good priest who is faced with sinister and troubling circumstances brought about by a mysterious member of his parish. Although he continues to comfort his own fragile daughter (Kelly Reilly) and reach out to help members of his church with their various scurrilous moral – and often comic – problems, he feels sinister and troubling forces closing in, and begins to wonder if he will have the courage to face his own personal Calvary.
