Richard Linklater’s ‘Me & Orson Welles’ Finally Finds U.S. Distribution

Almost a year since first making its world premiere at the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival, Richard Linkalater’s “Me & Orson Welles,” starring Zac Efron, Christian McKay, and Claire Danes has finally found itself some U.S. distribution.

The film will hit select theaters on November 25 via an alliance assembled by U.K. finance and production company Cinemanx. It’s actually a frankensteined effort that includes Freestyle Releasing, Louisville-based Hart/Lunsford Pictures, who are putting up the P&A (promotion and advertising) costs, and Warner Bros Home Video who will handle the DVD release.

Anything to get it to the screen, we guess, but be wary of that “select theaters” business in the Screen Daily story. That reeks of, “this is getting dumped into a few markets,” which is worse than limited release. To further this posit, Movieline reminds us that Freestyle Releasing were the same studio that released “Delgo,” which had one of the worst box-office openings and overall performance ever. Don’t expect a lot here. This one is essentially limping to the screen.

Though that’s better than not coming out at all, which could have easily been the case. “Me & Orson Welles” is a coming of age tale set in 1930s New York during Orson Welles’ pre-film, Mercury Theatre radio heydays when the prolific artist knew no artistic bounds and decided to stage “Julius Caesar” on Broadway. Efron plays an aspiring young actor who somehow convinced Welles to give him a part in the play.

Linklater is a super sweet guy and you can’t help but wish him all the best, but the picture was easily one of the least impressive pictures of everything we saw at TIFF ’08. We believe we used the words, “movie-of-the week.” Ouch, but honest.

The film will actually hit New York earlier than its Nov 25 date during the Woodstock Film Festival that runs Sept. 30 through Sunday Oct. 4, and the Austin-based filmmaker already has his next project lined-up: a rom-com called, “Liars (A-E),” about a woman (Kat Dennings) who retrieves lost items from her ex-boyfriends as she is on her way to President Obama’s inauguration. It’s no spiritual sequel to “Dazed & Confused,” but that one will probably have to wait for a better economic film climate.