Latest in American Animals

The Night Manager producer The Ink Factory has hired UK producer Katherine Butler (American Animals) in the newly-created role of Creative Director. Butler joins from Raw, where she was Creative Director for scripted. She was previously Deputy Head of Film at UK public funder Film4. At Raw, this year Butler wrapped…

The Orchard Film Group has been acquired by 1091 Media, an investment group affiliated with the team of a holding company that once owned the indie distributor. Terms were not disclosed, but 1091 said it will continue operations of the film and TV business under a new name, and that it will look to invest in content…

If there's a takeaway from this awards season, it's that true stories are back with a vengeance. For proof, look no further than Rosamund Pike as war reporter Marie Colvin in A Private War, Sam Rockwell as President George W. Bush in Vice, Mahershala Ali as Don Shirley in Green Book, Melissa McCarthy as forger Lee…

The British Independent Film Awards has set a handful of early winners with Yorgos Lanthimos' The Favourite scoring five prizes. Lynne Ramsay's You Were Never Really Here picked up two, while Bart Layton's American Animals and Nick Park's animated Early Man took one each. Save Early Man, each of the winning movies is…

Yorgos Lanthimos’ Venice Special Grand Jury Prize winner The Favourite leads nominations for this year’s British Independent Film Awards with 13 in its court. The twisted take on the British monarchy and period cinema, which Fox Searchlight releases November 23 in North America, has nods for Venice Best Actress…

Starring in all seven seasons of Ryan Murphy's American Horror Story, and signing on recently for an eighth, Evan Peters has had the opportunity over the years to play all kinds of unsettling and utterly specific characters within the producer's twisted domain, finding his most haunting—and most timely—role to date…

The Orchard has posted the first four minutes of Bart Layton’s American Animals on YouTube, paving the way for this weekend’s expansion of the art heist film. Last weekend, the film – a Sundance fest co-acquisition by The Orchard with MoviePass – took in a solid $140K from four locations in New York and L.A. The…

UPDATED at 11:20AM PT with more numbers and analysis. In a mixed weekend for specialty openers. the leading newcomer by far is American Animals. Backed by The Orchard and MoviePass Ventures, the film grossed $140,633, averaging $35,158, one of the best debuts of 2018.  The Sundance debut was directed by Bart Layton…

This weekend MoviePass basked in a tad of sunlight as their Sundance co-acquisition with The Orchard, Bart Layton’s American Animals, posted a solid $35K per theater, translating into $140K at four locations: Los Angeles’ The Landmark and Hollywood Arclight and New York’s Lincoln Square and Union Square. All of the…

Newcomers and A-listers crowd this weekend's batch of Specialty film arrivals. Bart Layton is making his narrative feature directorial bow with Sundance's American Animals, which The Orchard and MoviePass picked up out of the festival. The film, which had its New York premiere this week at Regal Union Square, features…

In the wake of the best Memorial Day stretch since 2014 with $227.6M, the box office will now go to sleep this weekend. While there are wide releases, many of them are counterprogramming options to the event titles out there. Disney’s Solo: A Star Wars Story will pull in a second weekend in the low $30Ms, experiencing…

At the beginning of the compelling and brilliant new heist drama American Animals, a title card says “This Is Based On A True Story,” only to see the words “Based On” erased quickly to read simply “This Is A True Story.” And that is an understatement. Although this film is about a real 2004 rare-books heist pulled off…