I wasn’t able to attend SXSW because one of my stupid friends got married like an idiot, but virtually everyone I heard from who saw Attack the Block, the Edgar Wright-produced tale of an alien invasion striking a South London housing project, said it it was the movie of the festival. At the time, it didn’t have a distributor, and there was even talk of possibly adding subtitles to make the British slang and accents more comprehensible to American viewers. (Also, can you make them look fatter in post? Otherwise I fear people will be confused.).
If you know anything about headline-question-mark etiquette, you already know we don’t have an answer to the subtitle question, but we do know that Screen Gems will handle theatrical distribution.
Sony announced today that they have picked up the film and that Screen Gems will distribute it; there’s no release date yet in place, but it sure seems like a good late-summer offering to me. Here’s what Screen Gems president Clint Culpepper had to say about the film: “Steve Bersch screened this film for me and I fell completely in love with it. The film is, at once, charming, scary, funny, hip, clever and completely hits its mark. I hope this is the beginning of a long relationship with these incredibly talented filmmakers.” [CinemaBlend]
It seems the sideways brohawk rally helmet I’ve been wearing has worked. And I should hope we won’t be needing subtitles. I understood everything in the trailer fine. I mean, it’s not like they’re speaking Scottish. I would, however, welcome seeing an American film translated into Cockney gibberish. “Oi, da puntah’s quaffed da wicket, ‘e ‘as! Fetch da bobby’s knickaz, blokes, we’s snoggin’ lorrie crisps tonoight!”