Though some have called it miserablist, slow, etc. while others have seemingly dug its take on contentment and togetherness, either way, Mike Leigh’s Cannes picture, “Another Year” has been picked up by Sony Pictures Classics.
We always kind of assumed this was a Focus Features picture, since Focus Features International financed it, but that’s not always how it works. While some have been harsh on SPC in recent years —perhaps for not making “Moon” the big tentpole film they thought it should be (guys, it’s thinking man’s sci-fi, it has limited appeal) —the distributor is pretty perfect for the Leigh film, as they pretty much exclusively work with intelligent foreign films.
Leigh’s last picture, the very excellent “Happy-Go-Lucky” (“En-rah-ha!”) was distributed by Miramax, but since they closed up shop, SPC seems like another perfect home for the director. Our man on the ground at Cannes missed the picture as he arrived late, but hell, it gives us something to look forward to later in the year.
The sale is the first major one at the 2010 Cannes Film festival — slightly strange considering all the news pouring out of the festival suggesting that the climate for film is changing for the better; it seems buyers are wary. One of the biggest pictures of the festival, Alejandro González Iñárritu’s “Biutiful,” starring Javier Bardem is still anxiously awaiting a buyer. Maybe very anxiously awaiting one as the film cost a whopping $45 million and has been saddled by poor reviews, even our own. Making that money back will be next to impossible, at least domestically.