The Sundance picture “Welcome To The Rileys” starring Kristen Stewart, James Gandolfini and Melissa Leo has moved from Apparition to Samuel Goldwyn Films. This is a bad and obvious sign that Apparition has fallen apart (co-head Bob Berney bailed a month ago, leaving the company in disarray) and the company is selling off their films.
The sale is mostly notable because Terrence Malick’s “The Tree of Life” is an Apparition film and the highly anticipated picture’s release could be delayed if it’s not sold by the fall, which was previously said to be its intended release date. ‘Rileys’ was directed by Ridley Scott’s son Jake. It’s about a damaged man (Gandolfini) on a business trip to New Orleans who seeks salvation by caring for a wayward young prostitute (Stewart —”Twilight” fans be prepared). [THR]
Son of a bitch! I wanna see Tree of Life so bad it hurts!
I'm so glad Welcome to the Rileys got a new distributor. Apparition already mess up The Runaways. Hopefully Tree of Life will get a better distributor. It's getting harder for indie films to get screens. The main reason Welcome to the Rileys sold quickly is because of the fame of Kristen Stewart in Twilight. Too bad not every movie has a big name star like that.
I think the film didn't get sold off by Apparition. Apparition has a deal to distribute films through Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions Group and it was SPWAG that bought the film and with Bob Berney at the helm of Apparition, they would distribute theatrically as Berney has all the marketing knowhow. SPWAG's endgame is they get to distribute the DVDs and keep it for their library, so because it's a buyers market for indies that have big names attached, but look like they'll be tough sells theatrically (say, other SPWAG titles like Chloe, the Woody Harrelson flick Defendor, etc.), SPWAG buys the film, decides with their various smaller labels like Apparition, Sony Classics and Samuel Goldwyn which one of them will best be able to distribute it theatrically. So no, Tree of Life shouldn't have any problems it didn't already have before and Welcome to the Rileys wasn't really "sold off" from Apparition, it was merely shifted around.
Also, I should add that Apparition doesn't have to distribute Tree of Life if they don't want to – it was fully financed by Apparition boss Bill Pohlad's River Road, which is why it was going to be distributed by Apparition, but I can't imagine if it's a good film and Pohlad doesn't feel like he has the infrastructure in place now at Apparition to distribute, he couldn't find another distributor to take it on.
Shit, if this has a negative effect on Tree of Life im done following it until a trailer comes out,or maybe even until the actual movie comes out. I mean I've been following this movie for over two years now and you guys at the playlist have done a great job with updates. but i feel like every time i read a new update i get a bad/negative feeling. sorry for the complaining its just i want to witness a beautiful cinematic experience. but i dont think thats going to happen for a while