'Leaves Of Grass' Delayed? Nope, Ed Norton Says The Picture Is Moving To A New Distrbution Company; Eyeing A Summer Release

For months we’ve sort of been screaming blue in the face — or again, our EIC has — about how good, weird and bizarre, in a good way, “Leaves Of Grass” is, posting about all its developments, pretty much every step of the way.

But the Tim Blake Nelson picture, one we called an”odd, multi-textured philosophical pot comedy cum thriller cum family drama (it’s like five films mashed into one),” that stars Ed Norton as a pair of opposite twin brothers on the wrong side of drug deal has seemingly been given the short end of the doob as it were (don’t bogart, yo).

The film, which also stars Keri Russell, Richard Dreyfuss, Melanie Lynskey, and Susan Sarandon seemingly received even worse news this morning. Scheduled for limited release this weekend, the NYP reported that the film was pushed back.

But for good reason. First Look Pictures — a small company — was evidently going to give the film a very limited release, but it turns out the film has now found a new distribution company that will give the picture a more ambitious release.

Ed Norton himself seems to be pretty happy and just wrote on Twitter, “Update on [‘Leaves Of Grass’]: very good news, the film has been picked up by a new company and will be given a much wider summer release. Details to come but we’re all really happy because now it will likely get to many more cities than just NY and Dallas.”

Norton added, “This happened very much due to great audience response and reviews and press out of SXSW. So huge thanks to everybody in Austin.” Does this mean our EIC can finally do some press for the film and stop grumbling about being overlooked? 😛

We saw the film at TIFF and were impressed as we were expecting just a simple, but perhaps enjoyable, stoner comedy, writing, “it’s a multi-layered film, juggles multiple tones, is complex, is often times unexpectedly violent, then funny and then totally tragic. We suspect it’s not for everyone per se, but we loved the shear scope and ambition.”

Sounds like the type of film the Playlist and its readers would love. “Leaves Of Grass” hits theaters… hopefully soon and hopefully starting out in more than just two cities. Update: Jeff Wells talked to 42 West PR who says the film will probably arrive in the summer. Update 2: Anne Thompson says the film will be put out by new distributors Telepathic Studios.