Things have been fairly quiet from the Cannes Film Festival in terms of film purchases, but that changed tonight as Radius-TWC has picked up the North American distribution rights to Jeremy Saulnier’s revenge thriller Blue Ruin, featuring a fairly obscure cast of actors for an undisclosed amount of money. They plan on releasing the movie sometime this fall.
The movie follows a man (Macon Blair) who finds his quiet life upended by unwelcome news and subsequently sets off for his childhood home to carry out an act of revenge. Proving an improbable assassin, he winds up in a brutal fight to protect his estranged family.
Radius co-presidents Tom Quinn and Jason Janego were already familiar with Saulnier’s work having released his movie Murder Party while at Magnolia Pictures. In a press release doing the rounds, they called his new movie Blue Ruin a masterpiece and a future cult classic. It is one of the most exceptional discoveries of the last few years thanks to Jeremys deft hand. We couldnt be more excited for our second collaboration.
Saulnier replied with positive lip service to his distribution partners: “Tom and I go way back when he championed my first film Im thrilled that my new film has found a home with him. Radius is absolutely the perfect fit for Blue Ruin.
The film was produced by Anish Savjani, Richard Peete and Vincent Savino.
So far the only other major deals have been the Weinstein company buying the Stephen Frears-directed Philomena, Warner Bros. jumping on board Ryan Gosling’s directorial debut How to Catch a Monster and Lionsgate picking the rights to The Quiet Ones.
