« Candid Cuba and Other Good Signs of The Times | Main | 'Aristocrats' Redux: Telling and Retelling at the Knitting Factory »
February 21, 2006
'Wonderful' News: Leiner's New York Ensemble Piece Finally Picked Up
Well, that only took 10 months: Variety reports today that First Independent Pictures has made a deal to release Danny Leiner's New York ensemble drama The Great New Wonderful. The film--which had its world premiere at last year's Tribeca Film Festival, sank into the indie netherworld, re-emerged a little clumsily when star Maggie Gyllenhaal got hella indignant about U.S. foreign policy, and then retreated once again into its producer's garage--surveys a group of New Yorkers working to reclaim normal lives in the aftermath of 9/11.
Wonderful's long wait for distribution seems even more improbable upon first glance at Leiner's cast: Gyllenhaal, Edie Falco, Stephen Colbert, Olympia Dukakis, Tony Shalhoub and at least a few other names will not look so bad piled up on a poster, and it has not endured a succession of critical beatdowns, as far as I can tell. Maybe Leiner's trenchant preceding one-two of Dude, Where's My Car? and Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle intimidated buyers? It is anyone's guess, really, but hardly worth the speculation now--Variety's Chris Gardner writes that breathless viewers can look forward at last to an early summer release.
Posted by stvanairsdale at February 21, 2006 08:46 AM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.mcnblogs.com/movabletype/mt-tb.cgi/843