By MCN Editor editor@moviecitynews.com

FilmDistrict Partners with Miramax for U.S. Distribution of “DON’T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK”

Presented by Guillermo Del Toro and starring Katie Holmes and Guy Pearce; Nationwide Release Set for August 12th

NEW YORK & SANTA MONICA, February 14, 2011 — FilmDistrict and Miramax today announced that FilmDistrict has acquired all U.S. rights to DON’T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK and that a wide release has been scheduled for August 12. Produced by Guillermo Del Toro and Mark Johnson, the film stars Katie Holmes, Guy Pearce, Bailee Madison and Jack Thompson and marks the directorial debut of Troy Nixey. DON’T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK is a remake of a 1973 TV movie bearing the same title, considered by Del Toro to be among the scariest ever made. The film was co-written by Del Toro and Matthew Robbins.

DON’T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK follows Sally (Bailee Madison), a young girl who moves to Rhode Island to live with her father (Guy Pearce) and his new girlfriend (Katie Holmes) in the 19th-century mansion they are restoring. Having stumbled upon the mansion’s hidden basement, Sally starts hearing voices calling out from the bolted ash pit, imploring her to open it. Sally obliges and unwittingly unleashes something so terrible, so unthinkable, that everyone’s life – hers most of all – is placed in immediate and grave danger.

Mike Lang, CEO of Miramax says, “We’re very pleased to partner with FilmDistrict to bring DON’T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK to U.S. audiences. Guillermo Del Toro has crafted a true thriller that exemplifies the type of high-quality films for which Miramax is known. We are thrilled to add it to our growing library and we look forward to maximizing its U.S. theatrical and long-term potential.”

“Nixey made a very impressive first film and we are thrilled to be working with Guillermo and Mark Johnson,” says Peter Schlessel, CEO of FilmDistrict. “DON’T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK should be one of the most anticipated horror films of the summer, and it rounds out our 2011 slate nicely.”

“Miramax has done an inspired job finding the right home for our film that took 15 years to get made. Partnering with Bob Berney is always an exciting privilege and I’m confident that the FilmDistrict team will bring the intelligence, patience, and inspiration to set DON’T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK forth into the world in a powerful way,” says co-writer and producer Del Toro.

“DON’T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK is the kind of incredibly unique and very frightening movie that we know American audiences crave,” says Bob Berney, President, Theatrical Distribution, FilmDistrict. “The filmmakers and cast have done a brilliant job in re-imagining the original version and I am personally very pleased to be working with Guillermo again.”

About FilmDistrict

FilmDistrict is a multi-faceted acquisitions, distribution, production and financing company focusing on wide release, commercial pictures. Founded in September by Graham King and Tim Headington’s GK Films, in partnership with Peter Schlessel, the company’s films include INSIDIOUS, April 1; SOUL SURFER, April 8; DRIVE, Sept. 16; and LOCKOUT February 24, 2012. For more information, visit filmdistrict.com .

About Miramax

The Miramax library is a collection of 700 motion pictures which were produced, financed or distributed by Miramax Films since 1979. The Miramax library holds some of the world’s most sophisticated, thought-provoking and critically-acclaimed independent films including sex, lies, and videotape, The English Patient, Shakespeare In Love, Reservoir Dogs, Chicago, Good Will Hunting, Pulp Fiction, My Left Foot, Cinema Paradiso, Life is Beautiful, Amélie, Kill Bill, Volume I and II, and No Country for Old Men, as well as scores of commercially successful films such as Bridget Jones’s Diary, the Scream, Hellraiser and Scary Movie franchises and Spy Kids. Collectively the Miramax archives have received 284 Academy Award nominations and 68 Oscars, including 4 Best Picture Awards.

View teaser trailer here.

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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

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And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

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So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

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My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon