LD Entertainment and Roadside Attractions have re-teamed in acquiring North American distribution rights to Julie Taymor’s The Glorias. The two companies have a track record that notably includes their getting together on Judy which recently earned a Best Actress Oscar for Renee Zellweger on the strength of her performance as Judy Garland. The Glorias deal was announced by LD Entertainment’s Mickey Liddell and Roadside co-presidents Howard Cohen and Eric d’Arbeloff.
The Glorias made its world premiere at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival where it received three standing ovations, A fall release date is planned in advance of the 2020 election.
With The Glorias, director and co-writer Taymor weaves a compelling, nontraditional tapestry of one of the most inspirational and legendary figures in modern history, pioneering feminist and activist Gloria Steinem. The film takes audiences on a road trip that spans five decades with Oscar® winning actresses Julianne Moore and Alicia Vikander joined by Lulu Wilson and Ryan Keira Armstrong in portraying Steinem at different stages of her life. The film also introduces a number of iconic women who had a profound influence on Steinem and the women’s movement, including Dorothy Pitman Hughes (Janelle Monáe), Flo Kennedy (Lorraine Toussaint), Bella Abzug (Bette Midler), Dolores Huerta (Monica Sanchez) and Wilma Mankiller (Kimberly Guerrero). Steinem’s father, Leo Steinem, is played by Oscar® winning actor Timothy Hutton.
Based on Steinem’s autobiographical book, “My Life on the Road,” the film was penned by Taymor and Sarah Ruhl. Taymor produced The Glorias alongside Alex Saks of Page Fifty-Four Productions, and Lynn Hendee. Executive producers include David Kern, Marcei A. Brown, Amy Richards, Jenny Warburg, Sarah Johnson, and Regina Scully. The production team includes three time Oscar-winning costume designer Sandy Powell, Oscar-winning composer Elliot Goldenthal, three time Oscar-nominated cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto, production designer Kim Jennings, and editor Sabine Hoffman. The deal was negotiated by Endeavor Content.
Review: Director Ali Abbasi’s “The Apprentice”
Decades before he hosted "The Apprentice," Donald Trump was … an apprentice.
His mentor: Roy Cohn, the ruthless attorney who was a prominent New York power broker in the '70s and '80s after famously serving as a top aide to Sen. Joseph McCarthy.
The Trump-Cohn connection is well known. But in "The Apprentice," his provocative if not quite shocking, entertaining if not quite illuminating, impeccably acted and inherently controversial film, Ali Abbasi takes it farther.
It's this relationship, posits the Danish Iranian director, that essentially made a young real estate heir — inexperienced but wildly ambitious — into the man who would become the 45th U.S. president, smashing the norms of American politics along the way.
Speaking of unlikely paths: The mere route of "The Apprentice" to the big screen is fodder for its own movie.
Written by Gabriel Sherman and starring an ingeniously cast trio of Sebastian Stan as Trump, Jeremy Strong as Cohn and Maria Bakalova as Ivana Trump, the film failed to get picked up at Cannes in May. That was surely due at least in part to a cease and desist letter from Trump lawyers.
Trump's campaign spokesman called the movie "pure fiction" (the filmmakers call their script "fact-based"). One of the film's investors — Trump supporter Dan Snyder, former owner of the Washington Commanders — saw it and wanted out. It was only weeks ago that Briarcliff Entertainment announced it would open "The Apprentice" this Friday — less than four weeks before the U.S. election.
So, what kind of movie do we have here?
Contrary to some descriptions, Abbasi says his film isn't a biopic at all, but a look at a relationship — and at a system that's about winning at any cost.
He's also... Read More