Sometimes things work out just they are supposed to, it just may take a little bit of time on occasion. Pablo Larraín’s latest film Jackie – which stars Oscar winner Natalie Portman as former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy – has been acquired by Fox Searchlight, as reported by Deadline. In somewhat labyrinthine course of events, the film was originally placed over at Fox Searchlight back when director Darren Aronofsky was attached to make the movie with Rachel Weisz in the lead role. Once Aronofsky and Weisz moved on, the film went into limbo. Now, after two successful runs at venerable film festivals – Venice and Toronto – the movie, despite it’s changing of the guards, is back at Fox Searchlight.
With this pick-up, Fox Searchlight is planning a December launch for the title cementing the warmly reviewed title into this year’s awards season. (Which may be a solid move considering Searchlight’s other high-profile awards push – The Birth of Nation – has been plagued with recent controversy.) Jackie focuses on the First Lady in the direct aftermath of the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Portman’s lead turn has been, thus far, universally hailed as one of her strongest performances. With Searchlight’s official acquisition of the title, she will likely be in the mix as the awards season kicks into high gear. Portman previously won an Academy Award for her lead performance in Black Swan, a film directed by Aronofsky (who has a producer credit on Jackie) and was distributed by Fox Searchlight. Greta Gerwig, Billy Crudup, John Hurt, and Peter Sarsgaard also star in the film.
Chilean Larraín has previously directed Post-Mortem, last year’s The Club and No, which earned an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Film back in 2013; Jackie marks his English-language debut. Noah Oppenheim (The Maze Runner) penned the screenplay for Jackie and recent won Best Screenplay at the recently completed Venice Film Festival, where the movie made its world premiere. Buzz on the title further built after another round of generous reviews following its screening at the ongoing Toronto Film Festival the other night.
Jackie is slated to open in theaters on December 9th.
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