Relativity Media Will Distribute in U.S.
Well, that’s one film we can take out of awards contention for 2011. One of Steven Soderbergh‘s upcoming films “Haywire” won’t be released till January 20, 2012. As we’ve been saying all along, Relativity Media has retained the domestic rights, with Lionsgate holding on to the foreign rights. Lionsgate was all set to release in the U.S. as well, until restructuring gave partner Relativity its own domestic arm for distribution. The initial date was April, 2011, which Soderbergh confirmed himself, but it was never officially announced; the restructuring deal points took much longer than anyone expected. Then August, 2011 became the next date everyone was zeroing on, but they too lost that window of opportunity when the deal pushed back the chance to release trailers and posters.
“Haywire” will star MMA fighter Gina Carano in her film debut alongside a phenomenal supporting cast of Channing Tatum, Ewan McGregor, new heartthrob Michael Fassbender, Antonio Banderas, Bill Paxton, Michael Douglas and Michael Angarano. Phew, that’s one hell of a team of men to back up this new leading lady. Carano will play a covert ops specialist who discovers she’s been double-crossed and takes revenge on her own company, in the film produced by Gregory Jacobs (who also produced Soderbergh’s ‘Ocean’s Trilogy,’) and written by Lem Dobbs (“The Limey“). David Holmes (the ‘Oceans’ Trilogy, “Out of Sight“) wrote the score.
“We are honored to be working with Steven Soderbergh on this project. This film is full of amazing action sequences, and with a sophistication only Soderbergh can deliver,” said Relativity’s President of Worldwide Production, Tucker Tooley. “We’re very excited to add our picture to Relativity’s 2012 slate. We’re looking forward to working with our partners at Lionsgate on the release internationally.”
Relativity is coming off of a win with this summer’s hit “Bridesmaids” (yes, they produced, Universal distributed) and has a few more interesting projects coming out next year, including Tarsem Singh‘s double with features “Immortals” and “Untitled Snow White Project,” (the one with Lily Collins and Julia Roberts). This move to the beginning of next year means that Soderbergh will likely push his other film “Contagion” for awards contention this year, especially considering we’re hearing that it could debut at the Venice Film Festival (which, incidentally, has a lineup that could be the best it’s been in years). With “Contagion” having a heavier-hitter star cast, including Matt Damon, Kate Winslet, Marion Cotillard, Gwyneth Paltrow and Jude Law, it makes sense that “Haywire” wouldn’t be quite such prime awards-season material.
“I think it might be best for ‘Haywire’ to follow ‘Contagion’, which is the kind of film people like to see me make,” Soderbergh said in an interview last night. “It’s in the vein of ‘Traffic,’ an entertaining multi-layered story about something timely right now. Because Gina has never been in a movie before, being able to draft off ‘Contagion’ will be very good. We knew she could do the right stuff, but she really delivers as a screen presence. She looks comfortable, and then she tears these guys in half.”
At the very least the release date push for “Haywire” mean that we’ll have something to look forward to in the post-awards doldrums of January.