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EXCLUSIVE: Relativity Media will be taking over from Lionsgate the North American distribution of the Marc Forster-directed Machine Gun Preacher. Relativity Media will set a fall release and is expected to platform the picture for Oscar season. Early word is that Forster might have pulled a performance out of Gerard Butler akin to the one Halle Berry turned in for Monster’s Ball.
The film is a fact-based drama about Sam Childers, a reformed badass who established an orphanage in war-torn Sudan and then supervised a militia to protect the kids who were being kidnapped to become child soldiers. Butler plays Childers, and Michelle Monaghan, Michael Shannon, Madeline Carroll, Kathy Baker and Souleymane Sy Savane also star. Jason Keller wrote the script that was based on the memoir Another Man‘s War: The True Story of One Man‘s Battle to Save Children in the Sudan.
Lionsgate acquired the film last June, and it is completed. The move involved a personal ask by Forster, who wanted the film to be released this year. Lionsgate has a crowded release schedule and just couldn’t do it. Forster and Lionsgate’s Joe Drake have a relationship that goes back to Monster’s Ball, and that is why this is happening. Lionsgate will still handle international rights on the film. It gives Relativity Media a horse in the Oscar race, after Ryan Kavanaugh’s company rode The Fighter pretty far last year.
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Madeline Carroll?! OK, astute and omniscient DH readers please fill me in – obviously not the Madeline Carroll from Hitchcock’s “The Thirty-Nine Steps.” So who? In any event, the premise sounds very promising, timely and compelling. Interesting that a Swiss director ran with the material.
No one wanted to fork over advertising to release this film when LionsGate originally acquired it. Forster’s best work long behind him.
Yeah. Lots of studios give up academy caliber films they helped finance because they don’t have a slot.
Lionsgate is not interested in promoting potential award winning films they like films that make a fast buck and that pre-screenings for critics are “not” required. “The Fighter” which Relativity distributed got Oscar wins last year. Machine Gun Preacher is completed so Relativity are well aware of what they are distributing. So if it didn’t have potential do you think they would bother?
Relativity did not distribute THE FIGHTER. Paramount did. In fact, Paramount developed and made the movie. Relativity came in late and paid for it. Paying for it is not an insignificant thing, admittedly, but it’s not the same as making and marketing the movie.
Umm, Precious?
Kavanuuuuuuuagh DUDE! I’ve seen this film and it is crap. You have really jumped the snark this time. You are going to get the Academy for best comedy…at the Razzies!!!!! Lipstick on a pig ring a bell??? AND this time I’m not even talking about you Ryan!
Butler’s agent has really fcked up his career. He took Butler from being the next big A-list action star, after 300, into being the next Matthew McConaughey Rom-Com guy. His agent put him on the permanent B-list or lower, where all Rom-Com guys settle. Most, although admittedly not all, A-list male stars are required to sell the occasional action role. Which requires the maintenance of an edge and some danger in public perception. Rom-Coms destroy edge and danger. Males who star in a string of Rom-Coms are harmless teddy bears at best, and effete young pretty boys at worst, in public perception. Rom-Coms and cuddly family comedies are death to dangerous edge. Family comedies ruined The Rock the first go around. Audiences do not take such actors seriously in action roles afterwords, even if the actor has muscles on top of muscles, like the Rock. Look doesn’t matter at that point. There is no edge left. Butler’s agent destroyed his edge, and now nobody cares to see him in action roles.
Lionsgate has no movie slated in Nov or Dec 2011. . . how could it have a busy season?!
Oh, goody. A neo Tarzan movie. Can’t wait.
Clearly, Lionsgate is saving its “For Your Consideration” coin for Tyler Perry and Madea.
Lionsgate is planning on Tom Hardy’s WARRIOR being their Oscar film. Serious buzz on this movie.
I’ve heard from people who saw this movie say that it’s okay, but not anything special – certainly not an Oscar-caliber performance.
I know someone who went to one of the early screenings who said this movie is AMAZING!
Why is everyone assuming it is about Butler’s performance. Michael Shannon is in this film and he is known for Oscar winning performances. The push for the Oscar race could be about Shannon in a supporting role and not necessarily for Butler. Christian Bale and his female co-star won the Supporting Actor Oscars in The Fighter not Mark Walhberg in the lead. Also the director may think he has a shot at a nomination.
Oh, so Forster gets the credit for Berry’s Oscar for “getting” the performance out of her? Certainly the script had nothing to do with it. And now he’s worked his magic with Jerry Butler?
Forster is a journeyman director, a competent visual craftsman but he is not a director with a strong artistic stamp or vision (which is probably why the studios like him so much. That and his elegant accent which reassures the execs that he’s smarter than them).
He followed up one of recent history’s biggest bombs (“Stay”) with a lesser but still impressive bomb (“Kite Runner”) and then for some reason he was given the reins on Bond and delivered something of a hash of a movie that most everyone acknowledged was a serious step back for a franchise that had just been marvelously re-booted by Martin Campbell.
He is most certainly not an “actor’s director” known for “getting” career-changing performances out of his actors, but you know, that’s probably the line Relativity will be taking this fall now that Lionsgate is realizing the dim commercial prospects of a film about African war orphans starring a guy audiences know as a fixture on the RomCom circuit.
“akin to the one Halle Berry turned in for Monster’s Ball.” You mean overrated?
AND ABout Time Gerard Butler got an Oscar. He should have had one for 300. I have heard that this film Machine Gun Preacher is stupendous. People who havwe seen the screenings say it’s definitely the best work from Marc Forster and Gerry is more than better than some of the Oscar winners I have seen lately.
Go for it
Joan (HUG) xxxx.