I’ve had my eye on a number of films that are still looking for distribution this year and could, potentially, figure into the awards season. Of course, a decent rule of thumb is if a film hasn’t been picked up by now (and isn’t set for fests), there’s usually a good reason for that. But you never know. More on those titles later this week, but for now, strike one from the list: Anton Corbijn’s “A Most Wanted Man,” which has just been acquired by Lionsgate.
I’ve been keen on this one. Corbijn’s transition to feature filmmaker has been interesting to me. The former music video director (“Enjoy the Silence,” “Heart-Shaped Box”) burst onto the scene in 2007 with the Ian Curtis biopic “Control” (which landed on my top 10 that year). He followed it up with 2010’s “The American” with George Clooney, which didn’t make much of a dent but I found it a very refined piece of work.
Adapted from the John le Carré novel, “A Most Wanted Man” stars Daniel Brühl as an on-the-run Chechen-Russian immigrant who arrives in Hamburg to claim his late father’s suspiciously acquired fortune. US and German security agencies try to snuff out whether he is an oppressed victim or an extremist and it’s all so deliciously…le Carré. Philip Seymour Hoffman, Rachel McAdams, Robin Wright and Willem Dafoe also star.
No release date has been set for the film. I rather expect it to land in 2014 but it would be cool to see it pop up at the end of this year. I’m very excited to see what Corbijn does next.
Here is a video with the author discussing the novel: