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EXCLUSIVE: Magazine Dreams, the drama that came out of Sundance with Oscar buzz for Jonathan Majors’ intense portrayal of a troubled aspiring bodybuilder, will finally getting its chance to flex on movie screens.
Briarcliff Entertainment has acquired domestic distribution rights to the critically acclaimed film with plans to release in the first quarter of 2025. This becomes the second quality hot potato picture taken on by Tom Ortenberg’s Briarcliff, after the distributor acquired the Donald Trump-Roy Cohn coming of age drama The Apprentice. Conglomerate-connected distributors shunned that film after its provocative Cannes debut, but Briarcliff will release it in the heat of election season on October 11. That film shows the lessons an aspiring real estate magnate learned after being taken under the wing of the reptilian lawyer who was once the right hand man for Sen. Joseph McCarthy in the sensationalized communist witch hunt. Ortenberg also distributed Spotlight, on the Boston Globe exposing the scandalous coverup of child molestation by the Catholic Church. That film won the Oscar for Best Picture.
Like many Sundance films, Magazine Dreams came out of Park City with big dreams. The directing debut of writer Elijah Bynum featured an astonishing performance by Majors, who transformed his body by eating 6100 calories daily, training six days per week over four months to physically transform himself into a most believable rendering of a young man so hellbent on becoming a champion bodybuilder that he defies his doctors’ appeals that he stop taking steroids because they were destroying his liver. The hulking character was prone to dark moods, and had trouble establishing human connections. All this took Killian Maddox down a dark path, fueled by his fixation with a champion bodybuilder he is obsessed with.
Majors, who had Creed III following this strongly reviewed Sundance film, was booked to be the villainous central figure in the next Avengers films, was poised to follow a track not seen in Hollywood since Russell Crowe followed his breakout in L.A. Confidential with tour de force performances capped by Gladiator, A Beautiful Mind and The Insider. Magazine Dreams won the US Dramatic Special Jury Award for Creative Vision at Sundance, and in its limited festival window, got an 82% Rotten Tomatoes approval score with over 90 reviews. Searchlight Pictures won the film in an auction over several bidders, and Majors was poised to be a major player come awards season, after strong turns in The Last Black Man in San Francisco, the limited series Lovecraft Country, and the Marvel film Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantimania.
All that was undone when the Yale School of Drama graduate Majors was arrested for physically assaulting his ex-girlfriend Grace Jabbari, an incident that ended with him being found guilty of two misdemeanor counts of assault and harassment. Majors initially seemed defiant, and press coverage was extensive. The narrative quickly changed on Magazine Dreams, and Searchlight delayed and then dropped the film.
Time has passed, and Ortenberg responded to something undeniable to those who watched Magazine Dreams: it is a gem of an indie film galvanized by a remarkable performance, and strong supporting cast performances by Haley Bennett, Taylour Paige and 4-time Mr. Universe Mike O’Hearn. It also heralded a promising new filmmaking voice in Bynum, who subsequently co-wrote the Lee Daniels-directed genre film The Deliverance.
“Magazine Dreams is a visceral experience that challenges the perceptions of ambition and identity,” Ortenberg told Deadline in a statement confirming the deal. “Elijah’s film made a well-deserved splash in Sundance and Briarcliff is looking forward to taking his story to the big screen across the country in early 2025.
“Jonathan Majors’ transcendent performance as Killian Maddox will undoubtedly be remembered as one of the most compelling and transformative roles in recent cinema history,” he said. “We are honored to bring this extraordinary work to theaters nationwide, inviting audiences to witness a story that will resonate long after the credits roll.”
The film is produced by Jennifer Fox, Dan Gilroy, Jeffrey Soros, and Simon Horsman. Executive producers include Majors for his Tall Street Productions, and Luke Rodgers and Andrew Blau for Los Angeles Media Fund.
Fox said the producers are “thrilled to be working with Tom again after a terrific collaboration on Nightcrawler,” which Gilroy directed and which starred Jake Gyllenhaal as an ambulance chasing videographer in a compellingly dark thriller.
Added Soros: “Tom has made a career of championing compelling, boundary-pushing films and filmmakers that stand the test of time, so we couldn’t have stronger partners to release Magazine Dreams than him and the great team at Briarcliff.”
The deal was negotiated by CAA Media Finance on behalf of the filmmakers, and by Tom Ortenberg, Jessica Rose, and Danielle Goodman Strong on behalf of Briarcliff Entertainment.
