It was just over a year ago that Warner Bros. turned heads by picking up the domestic rights to Ryan Gosling‘s directorial debut, then called “How To Catch A Monster.” Not only was it surprising that the ambitious movie had landed at a major studio, and the amount of money WB paid — $3 million — raised eyebrows. But it seems the studio is now having some major second thoughts.
Deadline reports that Warner Bros. are now buying drinks for indie/specialty distributors in the hopes that one of them will be interested in picking up and distributing the movie, since it had its ass handed to it by critics at Cannes. It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out, and who will roll the dice on releasing what some have already called this year’s “Southland Tales.” (And whether or not WB can get that $3 million back.) That being said, let’s not go crazy and call this film unreleasable.
While our review called the movie “kind of juvenile and dumb,” it’s not without its merits. As we noted in our feature today, the performances are pretty solid, the soundtrack by Johnny Jewel is ace, and even while this movie doesn’t work, it does show that Gosling has some good directorial instincts at his core.
And while Deadline thinks “Lost River” will see a release in theatres by the end of the year, something tells us that whoever winds up with this one, they’ll wait until 2015 — perhaps the spring — where they can get the most mileage out of what is a decidedly oddball picture.
