Anomalisa, a stop-motion lust story from Charlie Kaufman and animator Duke Johnson which was created with the help of $400,000 from Kickstarter, was one of the higher profile projects seeking distribution at TIFF this week. I’m happy to report that it’s been acquired by Paramount (for “mid seven figures”).
How good is Anomalisa? Well, it garnered a rare agreement from Mike Ryan and I, I gave it an A+, and it’s currently tracking 100% on Rotten Tomatoes. I think it’s Kaufman’s best since Eternal Sunshine, and Eternal Sunshine is one of my favorites of all time.
And now, you’ll be able to see it come December. Well, provided you live in New York or LA, anyway. Paramount is giving it a December 30th release in NY and LA, which is the classic method of qualifying it for this year’s Oscars while style trying to ramp up buzz in a platform-style release where it slowly trickles out to the heartland. It’s probably a good decision. As much as critics love Anomalisa, it seems bound to get at least a few Oscars nominations (almost certainly for Charlie Kaufman’s screenplay).
And it will probably lose to that one where Eddie Redmayne plays a lady because the Oscars are terrible and God hates me.