2024 Festivals/Awards Thread

[transformers2]

Nutcrackers has become the first Toronto debut to land distribution. Disney has picked it up and will release it on Hulu in December.

[Buscemi2]

After Halloween Ends and The Exorcist: Believer, I can't see too many distributors taking a chance on releasing a David Gordon Green film wide so I can absolutely seeing why it's going direct-to-Hulu. His name is not worth anything now.

[Buscemi2]

Piece by Piece looks to be DOA in both the animation and documentary races. Early reviews are mixed (62 on Metacritic). Nightbitch also looks to be out of the awards race based on its 62 Metacritic score.

[transformers2]

Toronto Award Winners:
People's Choice Award: The Life of Chuck
People's Choice Award, First Runner Up: Emilia Perez
People's Choice Award, Second Runner Up: Anora
People's Choice Award: Documentaries: The Tragically Hip: No Dress Rehearsal
Documentary, First Runner Up: Will & Harper
Documentary, Second Runner Up: Your Tomorrow
People's Choice Award: Midnight Madness: The Substance
Midnight Madness, First Runner Up: Dead Talents Society
Midnight Madness, Second Runner Up: Friendship
Platform Prize: They Will Be Dust
Platform Prize, Honorable Mention: Daughter's Daughter
Best Canadian Feature Film: Shepherds
Best Canadian Discovery: Universal Language
Best Canadian Discovery, Honorable Mention: You Are Not Alone

Few notes:
-Guess Mike Flanagan's quest to find a distributor for The Life of Chuck will be over in short order. Will be interesting to see if somebody views it as an awards player now.

-Anora has joined Parasite in the exclusive club of Palm d'or winners that also took People's Choice honors in Toronto.

-Emilia Perez has erased any remaining doubt that it's going to be Netflix's primary awards contender.

[numbersix]

I'm shocked by The Life of Chuck winning the main award. The critics have been pretty harsh towards it, and personally I am surprised Flanagan is doing something non-horror (though that said most of his TV shows are as scary as Days of Our Lives)

[Buscemi2]

Toronto is an audience-based festival and The Life of Chuck seems like his most audience-friendly movie to date. Also, the success of the Midnight Madness series has suggested a shift over the years to become more global and focused on movies the Internet will like (I mean, they did play the restored Whiplash this year).

As for the reviews, I did a 66 on Metacritic, which is better than Saturday Night, Nightbitch, and Piece by Piece, movies that have been sold by their studios as awards contenders. And given Flanagan's mostly-solid relationship with Netflix, I'd expect them to pay handsomely for worldwide rights.

[transformers2]

Believe it or not, The Life of Chuck was viewed as a top contender to finish in the top 3. Word on the ground all week was that it was playing like gangbusters at every screening and historically, tearjerkers fare very well in Toronto.

As for where it lands, Netflix would be a shock considering that Flanagan is a producer on it and his relationship with them ended on a sour note

[Buscemi2]

I know about the fight over the rights to Hush, their difference of opinion on physical media, and him jumping to Amazon but Netflix would pay top-dollar for something like this. And they want that Best Picture Oscar. They'd do anything to tell Flanagan they're sorry.

[transformers2]

Completely agree about Netflix's desperation to win Best Picture and willingness to pay big money for something like The Life of Chuck, I just have my doubts about Flanagan wanting to go back into business with them again, especially with the strong likelihood that they'll be other big money offers on the table.

[Buscemi2]

I did think about Amazon making a deal but MGM seems dead set on making Nickel Boys their big awards movie and I can't see them getting an ad campaign ready in three months, as we'd figure The Life of Chuck would be a wide release if MGM took it. It's too mainstream for A24 and Neon, a number of studios that don't normally pick up movies (Paramount, Sony, Warner Bros.) would treat it like an unwanted stepchild, Focus might not have the means to promote it, Lionsgate only seems to want to release dystopian and religious movies now, and Searchlight would give it a homogenized ad campaign that makes it look like every one of their other movies (also, it would be an eyesore to have the trailer sell it as "Searchlight Pictures Stephen King's The Life of Chuck").

Edit: turns out it is a dystopian film after all, because that's all that's getting made nowadays. I guess Lionsgate is in play for it after all.

[transformers2]

A24 has secured the US rights to Friendship. Thrilled to sit in a theater and enjoy this one with 15 other Tim Robinson superfans sometime next year.

[numbersix]

I'll be right there with ya.

Though the reviews are pretty good so there might be 16 other people.

[transformers2]

I'll be right there with ya.

Though the reviews are pretty good so there might be 16 other people.

Let's hope so. We need more of big screen Tim Robinson.

[numbersix]

We need to see Coffin Flop on the big screen

[transformers2]

That would be great, but I'll happily settle for any Corncob TV production