It was a real shame what happened to “The Immigrant,” James Gray’s last film. It was a beautiful movie, that won strong reviews in Cannes, and had a starry cast with Marion Cotillard, Joaquin Phoenix and Jeremy Renner. But The Weinstein Company sat on the film for a year before releasing it and it never quite got the attention it deserved as a result.
READ MORE: James Gray’s ‘The Lost City Of Z’ Will Close The New York Film Festival
But don’t expect a similar delay for Gray’s follow-up, the long-awaited period adventure movie “The Lost City Of Z.” The film, which stars Charlie Hunnam, Robert Pattinson, Sienna Miller and Tom Holland, will close the New York Film Festival in a few weeks, and only a week ago, Amazon snapped up the North American rights to the film, with a theatrical partner expected to be announced.
While plans that it might be Paramount didn’t materialize, The Hollywood Reporter announce that Bleecker Street have closed a deal with Amazon, with a significant eight-figure sum involved. And the good news is that it doesn’t seem like we’ll have long to wait: the film will be out in spring 2017, though it’s not yet clear if it’ll go immediately wide or platform out.
Meanwhile, per Screen Daily, the streaming giant have also paid out for the streaming rights for “David Lynch: The Art Life,” a new documentary about the “Blue Velvet” helmer and his visual arts work, teaming up with Janus Films and Criterion (who’ll eventually release the film in their Collection on Blu-Ray) to acquire Jon Nguyen’s film. You can catch up on our review of the film here: we called it an “endearing, honest guide” to the director.
Perhaps more boldly, despite a poisonous reaction in Cannes this year (our review called it “stupendously self-important”), Saban Films have announced via Screen that they’ve picked up Sean Penn’s directorial outing “The Last Face.” Starring Charlize Theron, Javier Bardem and Jean Reno, the film is a romance between two NGO workers in Sierra Leone, and was almost universally hated by critics. Still, presumably Saban think they can make some money given the A-list cast and director. No word on when they’ll be releasing the film, but it probably won’t be until 2017, we imagine.