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Led Zeppelin on Imax, Parthenope by Paolo Sorrentino and Armand starring Renate Reinsve, both Cannes premieres, and Barry Koeghan in Irish drama Bring Them Down headline an interesting specialty weekend.
Sony Pictures Classics debuts Bernard MacMahon’s hybrid docu concert film Becoming Led Zeppelin exclusively in Imax at 369 locations this week, opening wide next week on over 1,000 screens. Powered by never-before-seen footage, performances and music, the film is billed as an experiential cinematic odyssey exploring Led Zeppelin‘s creative, musical, and personal origin story. It’s told in Led Zeppelin’s own words and is the first officially sanctioned film on the group.
An early version premiered at the Venice Film Festival back in 2021 as a work in progress to a 10-minute standing ovation. It subsequently incorporated a brand-new sound mix, newly unearthed material from the archives of all four band members (including home movies and family photos), and exclusive interviews with Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, and John Paul Jones, as well as never-before-heard interviews with the late John Bonham.
SPC acquired the rights last spring. Co-presidents Michael Barker and Tom Bernard were interested in the film for years were in conversation with McMahon even before it played the Lido. “We felt it was very commercial, that it could become a major film,” says Barker. “He’s a talented filmmaker and it just got better and better.”
“There’s something about Led Zeppelin that’s up there with the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, and people are more curious about them,” said co-president Tom Bernard. “This movie reveals these guys in a way they have never been seen. And they endorsed the movie, which has never happened, and the fan base knows that.”
Written by MacMahon and Allison McGourt.
Moderate release: Mubi’s Bring Them Down, the debut feature from writer-director Chris Andrews starring Barry Keoghan (Saltburn) and Christopher Abbott (Possessor) opens at 450+ theaters. The drama about two warring families set against the harsh landscape of rural west Ireland premiered at TIFF with stops at genre festivals Fantastic Fest (where it won Best Picture) and Beyond Fest.
When the ongoing rivalry between farmers Michael (Abbott) and Jack (Keoghan) suddenly escalates, it triggers a chain of events that take an increasingly violent turn leaving both families permanently altered. With Colm Meaney, Paul Ready and Nora-Jane Noone.
Limited: A24 opens Paolo Sorrentino’s Parthenope on four screens in New York (Lincoln Square and Angelika) and LA (AMC Grove, Century City), a decades-spanning romance starring Celeste Dalla Porta, Stefania Sandrelli, Gary Oldman. Parthenope (Dalla Porta), born in Bay of Naples in 1950 searches for happiness over the long summers of her youth, falling in love with her home city and its many memorable characters. Premiered at Cannes, see Deadline review.
Noting A24’s The Brutalist by Brady Corbet has passed the $20- million mark and remains wide at 1,100 locations (down from 1,612).
IFC Films’ Renata Reinsve-starring Armand, which also premiered at Cannes, Deadline review here, is opening in NY and LA (IFC Center and Laemmle Royal) and expand nationwide on 2/14 and throughout February. Directed by Halfdan Ullmann Tøndel.
Reinsve (The Worst Person In The World, A Different Man) is an actress abruptly called into a parent-teacher meeting after hours and presented with scathing allegations that trigger a tangled web of accusations between parents and faculty.
IFC Films and Josh Sapan’s company Sapan Studio acquired it following its Cannes premiere, where it made as the first Norwegian recipient of the Camera d’Or . It also won the sound award Prix de la Meilleure Création Sonere for sound designer Mats Lid Støten and composer Ella van der Woud.
Halfdan is currently nominated for a Directors Guild of America (DGA) Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in First-Time Theatrical Feature Film – the ceremony is this weekend.
Andrew Johnson’s When I’m Ready from Quiver Distribution and Briarcliff opens in 8 theaters in markets including New York, LA, Chicago, Washington, D.C. and Phoenix. fFilmmaker Q&As in NYC at Regal Union Square Friday night, and at the Laemmle Monica in Los Angeles Saturday. Starring Andrew Ortenberg — who also wrote the screenplay and produces — June Schreiner, Thalia Besson, Lauren Cohan, and Dermot Mulroney.
Directed by Andrew Johnson, When I’m Ready revolves around a young couple, Rose and Michael, on a road trip across the country during the last days before an extinction event, as asteroids threaten to wipe out all life on earth. While journeying to see the girl’s grandmother one last time, they fight to find meaning and adventure in the world’s final week.
It was filmed in Los Angeles at several dozen locations in less than month on a shoestring budget. “My elevator pitch for it was, you’ve seen a million young love stories, and you’ve seen a million end of the world movies, but you’ve never really seen a combination of the two,” said Ortenberg. “I’m a huge fan of the end of the world genre. I love apocalyptic films, but in my view [they are almost] always very backwards facing … [this] is a forward facing end of the world movie that’s about how these young kids are about to be robbed of their whole futures. How they cope and respond.”
Notable re-release: Neon is re-releasing Bong Joon ho’s 2019 Oscar and box office-winning Parasite on 193 Imax screens. The Korean dark comedy about greed and class discrimination in a symbiotic relationship between the wealthy Park family and the destitute Kim clan grossed $53 million domestic ($260 million worldwide). The social satire became the first non-English language film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture.
