Sony Pictures Classics Releasing 'The Raid'

EXCLUSIVE: Sony Pictures Classics has been set to release The Raid, the Gareth Evans-directed martial arts film that won the Midnight Madness Award at the recent Toronto Film Festival. It is also rumored to be en route to the upcoming Sundance Film Festival, by which time it will have a new soundtrack from Mike Shionda of Linkin Park, with Joseph Trapanese. For SPC, the film is a departure from its current awards contenders that include Take Shelter and Midnight In Paris, but the film was certainly one of the most buzzed-about films at Toronto for the industry crowd. It would have been a bidding battle at the festival, but the domestic distribution rights had been smartly collared by the Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions Group back at Cannes, a buy made on partial footage that also gave Sony the inside track on remake rights. The remake was placed at Screen Gems, and now SPC’s Tom Bernard and Michael Barker will release the original next spring. As for Evans, he’s going back to Jakarta to shoot a larger-scale film that incorporates the actors and storylines from The Raid. Here’s the trailer: