By Ray Pride Pride@moviecitynews.com

RADiUS FALLS FOR ‘HEAVEN KNOWS WHAT’ AHEAD OF ITS NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL DEBUT TOMORROW NIGHT

Posted Wednesday, October 1st, 2014 - Comments Off on RADiUS FALLS FOR ‘HEAVEN KNOWS WHAT’ AHEAD OF ITS NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL DEBUT TOMORROW NIGHT
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 DIRECTED BY THE SAFDIE BROTHERS, THE HIGHLY COVETED FILM WORLD PREMIERED AT THE VENICE FILM FESTIVAL FOLLOWED BY A TORONTO FILM FESTIVAL INVITATION

New York, NY (October 1, 2014):  RADiUS proudly announced today that it has acquired US rights to HEAVEN KNOWS WHAT – ahead of tomorrow’s NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL premiere – by celebrated filmmakers Josh and Benny Safdie (LENNY COOKE, DADDY LONGLEGS).  Having recently world premiered at Venice before screening in Toronto, HEAVEN KNOWS WHAT blends fiction, formalism and raw documentary as it follows a young heroin addict (Arielle Holmes) who finds mad love in the streets of New York.   The film is based on Holmes’ soon-to-be-published memoir Mad Love in New York City.  Co-starring Caleb Landry-Jones (X-MEN: FIRST CLASS, BYZANTIUM), HEAVEN KNOWS WHAT also features street legend Buddy Duress and gore rap phenom Necro.

The film is a co-production between Iconoclast Films – the company behind Harmony Korine’s SPRING BREAKERS – and Elara Pictures, the latter of which is a new production company recently formed by the Safdies together with Sebastian Bear-McClard and Oscar Boyson.   Ronald Bronstein and Josh Safdie wrote the screenplay.  The executive producers are Charles-Marie Anthonioz, Mourad Belkeddar, Jean Duhamel and Nicolas Lhermitte.  Sean Price Williams is the Director of Photography and Benny Safdie and Ronald Bronstein edited the film.

An instant American classic, HEAVEN KNOWS WHAT has garnered extraordinary reviews drawing comparisons to REQUIEM FOR A DREAM and Korine’s KIDS.

RADiUS has targeted a second quarter 2015 release.

According to RADiUS Co-Presidents Tom Quinn and Jason Janego:  “HEAVEN KNOWS WHAT is a benchmark in American cinema.   We were completely entranced with the story and mesmerized by the characters.   Josh and Benny have made a complex, sophisticated, mind blowing film that we feel privileged to bring to audiences.”

The Safdie brothers go on to say:  “RADiUS is a team of intelligent, confident, and radical thinkers who believe in themselves and, consequently, our film.  We’re grateful and eager to collaborate with them on bringing HEAVEN to the masses.”

The deal was negotiated by Quinn and Janego with ICM Partners on behalf of the filmmakers.

ABOUT RADiUS 

RADiUS is the boutique label of the Weinstein Company (TWC) and the first studio division dedicated to both multi-platform VOD and theatrical distribution. Utilizing both traditional and digital media, RADiUS-TWC brings the highest quality films and other specialty entertainment to a wider audience than ever before. Founded and led by Tom Quinn and Jason Janego, the label continues to develop innovative distribution strategies to make marquee content available to consumers where, when and how they want it. The label’s inaugural slate included such films as BACHELORETTE (the first multi-platform film to hit #1 on iTunes and the only multi-platform release to ever reach #4 for top Cable VOD performers) and Cannes competition entry ONLY GOD FORGIVES directed by Nicolas Winding Refn and starring Ryan Gosling and Kristen Scott Thomas. Recent releases include: Morgan Neville’s Oscar winner 20 FEET FROM STARDOM; Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman’s LOVELACE; Zachary Heinzerling’s Oscar nominated CUTIE AND THE BOXER (Sundance 2013 U.S. Documentary Directing Award), Jacob Kornbluth’s INEQUALITY FOR ALL (Sundance 2013 U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award) and Keanu Reeves’ directorial debut – MAN OF TAI CHI in which he also stars.  In 2014, RADiUS’ slate features (among others): Bong Joon Ho’s runaway hit SNOWPIERCER, BLUE RUIN (winner of the FIPRESCI International Critics Prize at the Cannes Film Festival), Errol Morris’ THE UNKNOWN KNOWN, FED UP from Laurie David and Katie Couric, THE ONE I LOVE starring Elisabeth Moss and Mark Duplass (Sundance), Alexandre Aja’s HORNS starring Daniel Radcliffe (Toronto), Berlin titles: EVERLY (Salma Hayek), WHEN ANIMALS DREAM, and ESCOBAR: PARADISE LOST (Benicio Del Toro) as well as two time Tribeca Film Festival winner KEEP ON KEEPIN’ ON and BEYOND THE BRICK: A LEGO BRICKUMENTARY. The company is embarking on a CREEP trilogy alongside the Duplass brothers and Blumhouse Productions after the film’s highly praised SXSW premiere and recently announced it had acquired SXSW Grand Jury prize winner THE GREAT INVISIBLE. RADiUS just picked up the Anna Kendrick starrer THE LAST 5 YEARS, Chris Evans’ directorial debut BEFORE WE GO and the Nick Kroll, Rose Byrne and Bobby Cannavale starrer ADULT BEGINNERS all out of Toronto.

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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?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

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.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

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.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

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