Red Envelope Tagged Articles at Cinematical

The documentary Running with Arnold has been landing distribution deals left and right, and not just in the U.S., according to Variety. Distributors in other countries also seem to think that a documentary about Arnold Schwarzenegger's political career will be a box-office and home-entertainment draw. I caught the movie during its world premiere at SXSW this year. I found it entertaining, but as I noted in my review, relying a little too heavily on cheap shots to make certain points. You might remember that at least one of those cheap shots caused some difficulties between director Dan Cox and Alec Baldwin, who asked to have his voiceover work removed from the film. Baldwin's narration appears to still be intact.

Netflix's distribution arm Red Envelope Entertainment has bought the U.S. distribution rights for Running with Arnold. The movie will be released in theaters starting on Jan. 18, 2008, with Lantern Lane Entertainment handling the theatrical distribution. No date is available yet on a DVD release. In addition, Latido has sold distribution rights for the documentary about the Governator to media outlets in Japan, Canada, and Denmark, as well as to a Scandinavian TV channel. Deals for distribution in Germany and the UK may be in the works, but there's no word on Austria, where actor/politician Schwarzenegger was born.

[via Matt Dentler's Blog]

Is Alan Ball's new drama Nothing Is Private really the most controversial film of the Toronto International Film Festival? You'll be able to find out when it hits theaters, courtesy of Warner Independent and Netflix's Red Envelope Entertainment, which bought the film for about $1.25 million, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Based on the novel Towelhead by Alicia Erian, the film reportedly includes graphic depictions of rape, pedophilia, menstruation, and racist dialogue. Fox News' Roger Friedman has already worked himself into a lather about it, calling it "the worst and most offensive movie I've seen in a while" and "the feel-awful movie of 2007." (What, he didn't see Bratz?)

Writer/director Ball (Six Feet Under, American Beauty) cast a young actress named Summer Bishil in the lead, playing an Arab-American girl who suffers all manner of abuse at the hands of her neighbor, her boyfriend, and her father. Aaron Eckhart (Erin Brockovich) plays the neighbor, whose actions toward the girl are despicable indeed.

The film has garnered enthusiastic responses, both positive and negative, and surely the distributors know that controversy often equals cash. Furthermore, it's the first movie to be directed by Oscar-winning screenwriter Ball, and his first screenplay since American Beauty -- so it would have been a hot ticket even without the incendiary subject matter. No word yet on when Warner Independent will release it, but you can bet we (and Roger Friedman) will keep you posted.

Sifting through the list of Golden Globe nominations today, I noticed that Maggie Gyllenhaal received a Best Actress nomination for Sherrybaby. The film premiered at Sundance nearly a year ago -- Kim Voynar not only reviewed the film, but also reported on a Q&A with the filmmakers. The indie drama landed a distribution deal in May, which made headlines because Netflix acquired both theatrical and DVD rights, with IFC managing the theatrical release. When most of us think of "theatrical distributors," we don't usually think of Netflix -- the company is associated more with DVD rentals. However, Netflix has been very successful in raising awareness of indie films on DVD, such as Born Into Brothels, so the company is branching out into theatrical releases and even producing original films under its Red Envelope Entertainment label. Netflix/Red Envelope has released several independently made films, such as Sherrybaby and The Puffy Chair, in a limited number of theaters this year.

Sherrybaby has become one of the highest-profile and most acclaimed movies distributed by Netflix, winning best picture and best actress awards for Gyllenhaal both at the Karlovy Vary film festival and the Stockholm film festival this year. The movie appeared in theaters in September, and will be released on DVD on January 23. Now that Gyllenhaal's Golden Globe nomination will raise general awareness of Sherrybaby even more, this can only be good for Netflix -- both in terms of DVD rentals of the film, and in raising its prestige as a theatrical distributor. (I just saved the movie to my own Netflix queue -- the nomination was a great reminder.) And if the Golden Globes truly do foreshadow the Oscar nominations, Netflix could become an even larger force in indie-film distribution.