“I said show me the script but he didn’t have one. “We got very serious about it and he said he’d like to make this right away in Paris,” said Palmieri.
I agreed to make payroll for the following weeks and to finish the movie.” In the course of Martha, Palmieri became friends with Campos, who had pitched him the concept behind Simon Killer. “They ran out of money two weeks into Martha.
“I met those guys right before making Martha Marcy May Marlene,” said producer Matt Palmieri, who received a 1993 Oscar nomination for Live Action Short Cruise Control. In the film, Simon shows up in Paris following a recent break-up, becomes involved with a prostitute and begins to reveal a dark recent past. At its Sundance premiere in 2012, Brady Corbet likened his character, Simon, to the accused Dutch-Aruban killer of Alabama teen Natalee Holloway, Joran van der Sloot. This time, Martha director Sean Durkin served as producer for Simon Killer, which is directed by Antonio Campos (he was a producer of Martha - get the film collective idea?). The folks behind Borderline Films, which brought 2011 indie hit Martha Marcy May Marlene to the big screen, headed to Paris with their follow-up. In the U.S., Searchlight will open Trance in four theaters in New York and Los Angeles this weekend and move it into wide release April 12, adding more than 350 theaters.Ĭast: Brady Corbet, Mati Diop, Lila Salet, Consatance Rousseau, Nicolas Ronchi “With all that being said, the biggest selling point of this film is obviously Danny Boyle’s name.” Rodriguez said that opening numbers in the UK, where it opened relatively wide, have been very strong, grossing about $2.4 million there since March 31. “We have been primarily targeting young and older males along with an overall art house audience”, he said. “But it is clinically possible…”įrank Rodriguez, SVP Distribution at Fox Searchlight, noted that its marketing plan for the film, which centers on an art auctioneer (McAvoy) who becomes mixed up with a group of criminals and turns to a hypnotherapist (Dawson) to recover a lost painting, has been “quite varied”. “The one thing about Danny as a visionary filmmaker is he challenges us and challenges the audience and expects us to go with him…” Boyle introduced co-stars Dawson and Cassel before the screening in Chelsea, noting about the film: “What happens in the movie is deeply, deeply unethical,” he noted to laughs from an audience that included Patrick Stewart, Emma Watson, Kathleen Turner, Gina Gershon and Lou Reed & Laurie Anderson. “This is our sixth film we’ve done with Danny starting with 28 Days Later 10 years ago in 2003, and we’ve had a fabulous time,” Searchlight co-president Steve Gilula said in introducing the film at its New York premiere, hosted by The Cinema Society. The famed critic will be remembered for being a champion of movies big and small and will be sorely missed.Ĭast: James McAvoy, Rosario Dawson, Vincent Cassel, Danny SapaniĪs part of its overall deal with Boyle, Searchlight has been on board Trance from the very start. Also set to bow, Robert Redford’s thriller The Company You Keep. The specialty world, meanwhile, took pause today as the news of Roger Ebert’s death spread.
Free Angela & All Political Prisoners is this week’s documentary newcomer, while Lotus Eaters hopes to carve itself a piece of the limited release box office pie. And the folks behind 2011 hit Martha Marcy May Marlene are opening Simon Killer, a dark drama set in Paris, via IFC Films. Trance will likely be the juggernaut of the group with its star-power in the form of James McAvoy, Rosario Dawson and Vincent Cassel, though Upstream Color could prove a hefty presence due to strong word of mouth and a loyal following from fans of Shane Carruth’s previous film, Primer.
This week’s Specialty newcomers include Danny Boyle’s Trance from Fox Searchlight, IFC Films’ Simon Killer and self-distributed Sundance favorite Upstream Color.