Armstrong Film Has a Trailer/Spotlight on "Spotlight"/The Era of Netflix

Good Thursday World!

ARMSTRONG FILM HAS A TRAILER

Director Stephen Frears "Lance Armstrong" project has a new name.  It was being referenced as "The Icon" and now it is being billed as "The Program".  The film is still unattached to a distributor in the U.S. but does have a late September release date in France.  Frears presence means we have to take the film seriously as a potential Telluride player.

Ben Foster stars as the disgraced former Tour de France champion.


At any rate, the film has an international trailer that dropped yesterday.  It's in German.  I have linked a couple of stories with the trailer here:

http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/watch-first-international-trailer-for-stephen-frears-lance-armstrong-pic-the-program-starring-ben-foster-20150610

http://www.businessinsider.com/lance-armstrong-the-program-movie-biopic-trailer-2015-6


SPOTLIGHT ON "SPOTLIGHT"

News yesterday that "Spotlight", the Tom McCarthy film that focuses on the reporters that broke the case of Catholic priests and their pattern of abuse in the Boston area, has a release date of Nov. 6th.   Michael Keaton, Stanley Tucci, Rachel McAdams and Liev Schreiber, among others, star.

The film is distributed by Open Road which was at Telluride last year with Jon Stewart's "Rosewater".

Open Road also has Oliver Stone's "Snowden" and John Hillcoat's "Triple 9".  The same news blast yesterday revealed that "Triple 9" has been moved to a March 2016 release date.

Here's the story from Variety:


http://variety.com/2015/film/news/michael-keaton-mark-ruffalo-spotlight-1201516706/


THE ERA OF NETFLIX

The big announcement came from Netflix this week that the video delivery service has struck a deal with Brad Pitt and David Michod to produce and distribute "War Machine" a satire of America's military involvement in the War on Terror.

This comes in the wake of the earlier news that Netflix will do the same with Cay Fukunaga's "Beasts of No Nation".

I'm very interested to see how Netflix plays this and if it has an effect on film festivals in any fashion.  "Beasts" seems to me to be catnip for most film fests if it was being handled traditionally.  However, the new "Netflix" (and others) world may turn film festivals to making different decisions concerning how and what they program.  Stay tuned...

Various stories about the Netflix/Brad Pitt project.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/netflix-nabs-brad-pitt-film-794769

http://variety.com/2015/digital/news/netflix-acquires-brad-pitts-war-machine-1201514495/

http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/netflix-picks-up-david-michods-war-machine-starring-brad-pitt-20150608

http://www.ropeofsilicon.com/netflix-lands-brad-pitts-next-movie-war-machine-from-the-rover-director/


More on Friday...


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