A24 To Finally Release Gus Van Sant's 'Sea Of Trees' Starring Matthew McConaughey & Naomi Watts

Thanks to films like “Ex Machina,” “The Witch,” “Room” and “Spring Breakers,” A24 have built up a reputation as the distributor every filmmaker wants to be in business with. Their unconventional marketing techniques have proven that they can connect with younger audiences who are tough to get to the arthouse, and their taste for difficult material has seen some films that are far from easy sells, like this week’s “Swiss Army Man,” get pushes.

Earlier this year, they had great success with rescuing a film from another distributor — the cash-stricken Alchemy had bought “The Lobster” at Cannes in 2015 but couldn’t afford to release it. A24 stepped in and have made it an unexpected sleeper, with $6 million at the box office already. Now it looks like they’re trying the same approach again, with an even more challenging bit of material.

READ MORE: Cannes Review: Gus Van Sant’s ‘The Sea Of Trees’ Starring Matthew McConaughey, Ken Watanabe & Naomi Watts

The studio have, according to The Hollywood Reporter, struck a deal to release Gus Van Sant’s “Sea Of Trees,” starring Matthew McConaughey, Naomi Watts and Ken Watanabe. The eagerly-anticipated film, which sees McConaughey’s grief-stricken architect travel to the famous suicide forest in Japan to kill himself, only to encounter a mysterious Japanese man (Watanabe), premiered at the same festival as “The Lobster,” to one of the most spectacularly negative responses in the history of Cannes. (Our review called it “easily Van Sant’s worst, and a sad black mark of McConaughey’s mostly excellent recent run”).

Nevertheless, A24 seem to think they can make some money from it, and have acquired it from Roadside Attractions/Lionsgate, who bought it before the film premiered (presumably sight unseen…). A late summer release is planned, though no firm date has been released yet. We’re actually excited for people to see the film: it’s such a profoundly stupid film that it should be a lot of fun to talk about. More news on it as we get it.