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Brett Morgen’s kaleidoscopic ode to David Bowie landed at no 10 in North America this weekend, singing up 1.225 million on 170 screens – exclusively Imax.

The 7,207 PSA for the Neon distributed Moonage Daydream – expanding to about 600 screens next week — was the best of the ten, which all debuted on north of 2,000 screens.

Directed, written and produced by Morgen, Moonage is the number one music doc opening post pandemic, and the best opening for a post-Covid documentary on less than 200 screens, second only to Roadrunner (Focus Features), which went out on 900+ screens its opening weekend in April of 2021. Over the last 52 weeks, Searchlight Pictures’ The French Dispatch was the only film released on fewer than 200 screens to surpass a 1.2M gross, Neon noted. Morgen hosted nearly sold out Q&a’s opening weekend at the Tcl Chinese Theater in LA.

The doc took in 592k Fri./373k Sat.

“God’s Country” was reviewed by TheWrap out of the 2022 Sundance Film Festival.

“God’s Country” is the latest offering in a trend of reimagining both the Western and the thriller, as this film is also tagged, with Black leads. Thandiwe Newton, a 2018 Emmy winner for “Westworld,” stars as Sandra Guidry in an adaptation of James Lee Burke’s 1992 short story “Winter Light” about a college professor who gets into a battle of wills with two hunters who trespass on her property in Montana.

For filmmaker Julian Higgins, his feature-length debut is the second time around for the core story. Back in 2015, Higgins directed a successful short of the same name with, in keeping with the story, an older white male protagonist as lead. Obviously, a Black female star brings a different nuance to the narrative, but the real question may be whether Higgins and his story collaborator Shaye Ogbonna, a Black male writer,...

Thandiwe Newton in God’s Country Image: Courtesy of Gc Film, LLC The rolling hills and icy plains of God’s Country are equal parts bleak and beautiful. In Julian Higgins’ feature directorial debut, co-written with Shaye Ogbonna, the mountains that were “there before people” serve as a Rorschach test for its...

Thandiwe Newton ventures to the frosted depths of the forest in IFC Films’ “God’s Country,” inspired by James Lee Burke’s short story “Winter Light.” In the film, Newton portrays Sandra Guidry, a college professor living in a rural town while grieving the recent loss of her mother. On the day of the funeral, Sandra finds a mysterious truck parked in her driveway that belongs to hunters looking to hunt on her property. Sandra is soon drawn into a battle of escalating wills in the Western-set thriller.

“God’s Country” is directed Julian Higgins, who co-wrote the screenplay with Shay Ogbonna. Jeremy Bobb, Joris Jarsky, Jefferson White, Kai Lennox, and Tanaya Beatty also star. The film first at 2022 Sundance Film Festival, and is produced by Miranda Bailey, Halee Bernard, Julian Higgins, and Amanda Marshall. Executive producers include Jason Beck and Anthony Ciardelli.

Director Higgins said in a press statement that he...

Exclusive: Julian Higgins, the writer, director and producer behind the Sundance breakout God’s Country, has signed with A3 Artists Agency for representation.

Higgins’ feature directorial debut, based on the short story “Winter’s Light” by James Lee Burke, is set in the snowy wilderness of the American West. In the character-driven thriller, BAFTA and Emmy winner Thandiwe Newton plays Sandra Guidry, a Black professor living and working in a rural college town who discovers a mysterious red truck parked in her driveway, and soon learns it belongs to a pair of local hunters seeking to enter the forest behind her house. Sandra turns them away politely but firmly – her experience tells her these are not the sort of men to welcome freely into her world. But they won’t take no for an answer, and soon Sandra finds herself drawn into an escalating battle of wills that puts...

Screenplay based on short story by renowned crime writer James Lee Burke.

IFC Films has picked up North American rights to Julian Higgins’ feature debut God’s Country starring Thandiwe Newton following its world premiere at virtual Sundance 2022 last month.

Newton plays a troubled Black professor living and working in a rural college town in the American West who gets into an escalating feud when local hunters use her land to enter a forest.

Rounding out the key cast are Jeremy Bobb, Joris Jarsky, Jefferson White, Kai Lennox and Tanaya Beatty.

Higgins adapted the screenplay with Shaye Ogbonna from the short...

IFC Films has acquired the North American rights to “God’s Country,” a thriller and modern-day Western starring Thandiwe Newton that premiered at this year’s Sundance.

Julian Higgins directed the film that stars Newton as a reclusive college professor living in a small, Western town who gets into an escalating battle of wills with two locals who insist upon parking their truck and trespassing onto her land.

IFC Films plans to release “God’s Country” theatrically in fall 2022.

“God’s Country” is based on a short story called “Winter Light” by author James Lee Burke. Higgins and writer Shaye Ogbonna first adapted the story as a short film before expanding it as a feature, but this time turning the character into a Black woman and expanding the part and character’s backstory significantly.

While the film has the trappings of a thriller and Western, it’s far more of an intimate, slow-burn...

Exclusive: IFC Films has acquired North American rights to Julian Higgins’ feature directorial debut God’s Country, starring BAFTA and Emmy winner Thandiwe Newton, on the heels of its debut at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival. It will release the film won in a bidding war in theaters this fall.

The acquisition is IFC Films’ third out of this year’s virtual festival, following its pick-up of the horror-thrillers Resurrection (starring Rebecca Hall and Tim Roth) and Watcher (starring Maika Munroe), and marks the seventh for its parent company AMC Networks.

Higgins and Shaye Ogbonna scripted God’s Country, which is based on the short story “Winter’s Light” by James Lee Burke. In the character-driven thriller set in the snowy wilderness of the American West, Newton plays Sandra Guidry, a Black professor living and working in a rural college town who discovers a mysterious red truck parked in her driveway,...

Thandiwe Newton is issuing an apology for colorism in Hollywood.

The “God’s Country” star spoke out against prejudice in an interview with Sky News (via The Independent UK).

“My internalized prejudice was stopping me from feeling like I could play this role when it’s precisely that prejudice that I’ve received,” Newton said of starring in the 2022 Sundance film, based on James Lee Burke’s short story about an older white man.

Newton continued through tears to say, “I’m sorry that I’m the one chosen” over “darker-skinned actresses.”

“It’s been very painful to have women look like my mum feel like I’m not representing them,” Newton said. “That I’m taking from them. Taking their men, taking their work, taking their truth. I didn’t mean to.”

The “Westworld” star previously addressed the colorism she has faced in casting discussions as a biracial British woman.

A few thrillers have premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival that feature vulnerable and underestimated women, but none of them carry the quiet, enigmatic power of Thandiwe Newton in God’s Country, a frigid neo-western that moves glacially but thoughtfully through topics of class, race, and gender. As Sandra, a college professor living alone with her dog in the vast Montana wilderness, Newton exudes a gravitational force, carrying a stern and inscrutable countenance that her character will eventually use to her advantage in an ongoing dispute with two white men. In a pocket of the country that feels lawless and bitterly divided, Sandra is unafraid to begin a vindictive war of escalation, even if it means stripping away everything important in her life.

Directed by Julian Higgins, and based on James Lee Burke’s short story, “Winter Light,” God’s Country introduces Sandra cloaked in the aftermath of death. In the final weeks before Christmas,...

Race, class and cultural divides are probed with intriguing understatement in “God’s Country.” Julian Higgins’ first feature can be taken as a drama with thriller elements or a low-key thriller with atypical dramatic nuance, working either way as a quietly effective balance between genre, social issue and character study elements. Based on a James Lee Burke story, it stars Thandiwe Newton as a college professor whose fish-out-of-water status in rural Montana is exacerbated when she runs afoul of trespassing working-class hunters. Too modest in scope and impact to be a major breakout title, this Sundance premiere should nonetheless attract streaming outlets and other home-format providers.

The screenplay by Higgins and Shaye Ogbonna is a “western” in that it’s on the laconic side verbally, at least most of the time. Thus it’s a while before we realize that the loved one Sandra Guidry (Newton) buries at the start is her long-ailing mother,...

Exclusive: Showtime has put in development Jumpmen, a sneaker industry drama from writer Shaye Ogbonna (God’s Country). Justin Hillian is overseeing the project as part of his overall deal with Showtime, and producing along with 3 Arts.

Created and executive produced by Ogbonna, Jumpmen is a high-energy insider drama about the cutthroat world of the sneaker industry, centering on a self-made sneaker exec turned industry power broker. As the business changes around him, and old friends become adversaries, he must decide what’s more important-industry capital or cultural relevance.

Ogbonna co-wrote the screen adaptation for thriller God’s Country with Julian Higgins. Based on James Lee Burke’s short story Winter’s Light and directed by Higgins, the film is slated to make its world premiere at the virtual Sundance Film Festival this Sunday, Jan. 23. Starring Thandiwe Newton, God’s Country follows a grieving college professor as she confronts two...

Los Angeles based filmmaker Julian Higgins (a past Student Academy Award winner) began tinkering around with the long form of his current project with a 2015 short Winter Light – based on James Lee Burke’s short story. After a paying gig in television’s Guidance, this past February Higgins took to the epoque friendly backdrop of Montana for a neo-Western thriller starring Thandie Newton. God’s Country was recently included in Film Music and Sound Design Lab at the Sundance Institute.

Gist: Written by Shaye Ogbonna, Newton plays a grieving college professor living on her own at the edge of the national forest.…...

Exclusive: Westworld Emmy winning actress Thandie Newton will headline Julian Higgins’ feature directorial debut God’s Country for Cold Iron Pictures and The Film Arcade, Deadline has learned.

The neo-Western thriller is set in the bleak winter landscape of the Mountain West. Newton plays a college professor living on her own at the edge of the national forest. One day she confronts two hunters trespassing on her land, triggering a battle of wills with dangerous ramifications.

Screenwriter Shaye Ogbonna adapted the script with Higgins from James Lee Burke’s short story Winter Light. Burke is The New York Times bestselling author of the Dave Robicheaux detective series and numerous other novels. He has received two Edgar Awards and the Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America, as well as a Guggenheim Fellowship for Creative Arts in Fiction and a nomination for the Pulitzer Prize. Burke’s 40th novel will be released this year.

Fasten your seatbelts. It’s going to be a bumpy night. • Bettie Davis, All About Eve, 1950

Well, maybe it’ll be a bumpy night. I mean, I’m just beginning this column. How do I know how it’ll turn out? Do I look like a prophet to you?

Okay, onward! One confession, coming up:

I am not going to continue to duck, dodge, elude, evade, ditch or even do an end run around something I should have dealt with months ago.

But… where to begin?

Before beginning, let me present to you, at no extra charge, what I imagine my delinquency concerning the matter that may be the subject of this column – it’s still early – would look like, if it existed, which it doesn’t.

...a shard of mirror, jagged and pointed and sharp, thrust into my soul stuff…

Please don’t ask me to describe “soul stuff...

Between Leonardo DiCaprio crawling through the wilderness in “The Revenant” and Quentin Tarantino holing up a gang of lowlifes during a blizzard in “The Hateful Eight,” you could say that 2015 was a good year at the movies for tough guys in snowy environments. And as the Oscar nominations loom, one more contender fits that bill. “Winter Light” is a short film set in a cold and remote town in Montana, based on a short story by Edgar-winning mystery and crime writer James Lee Burke. The film deals with a college professor who confronts a pair of trespassers on his property,...

Read More: Where I Shot It: How the Filmmakers Found the Perfect Locations for 'The Revenant' [Editor's Note: This article is presented in partnership with the Montana Film Office, a central information source for on-location filmmakers. Click here to learn more.] In July of 2013, award-winning director Julian Higgins teamed up with actress-producer Abigail Spencer ("Rectify," "Mad Men," "Suits") and actor-producer Josh Pence ("The Social Network," "The Dark Knight Rises," "Draft Day") to create the short film "Here and Now." Ron Howard and Bryce Dallas Howard selected "Here and Now" as the winner of Canon’s “Project Imaginat10n” Film Contest. Higgins, Spencer and Pence teamed up again for "Winter Light," a short film adapted from a story by acclaimed best-selling author James Lee Burke. The existentialist film stars Raymond J. Barry...

After their 2013 short film “Here and Now” was selected by Ron Howard as the winner of Canon's “Project Imaginat10n” film contest, producers Abigail Spencer, Josh Pence, Justin Allen and director Julian Higgins are reteaming on a new short film titled “Winter Light,” which will star Raymond J. Barry (“Justified”), Vincent Kartheiser (“Mad Men”), Q'orianka Kilcher (“The New World”), Michael Bofshever (“United 93″) and Pence (“The Social Network”). Adapted by screenwriter Wei-Ning Yu from a short story by bestselling author James Lee Burke, “Winter Light” is a modern-day revisionist Western set against the sweeping backdrop of the snow-covered Montana wilderness.

There’s a rule in Tinseltown, along with the better known ones like “nobody walks here”: If something’s working, keep working it. Work that crap right to death. A wise man once illustrated the design of the Hollywood machine as, simply, “people like the same old shit, only a little different.”

In the case of Fox-based producer, Hutch Parker, the next cog on the production line isn’t shit. He’s making the same gold, only a little different.

Word has it that Parker is going to be cobbling together a cable TV series based on the books of James Lee Burke. Detective Dave Robicheaux is going to be serialized for the small screen, in all his colorful French Quarter glory.

Of course, this follows on the boot heels of another project, obvious to any who appreciate the cable TV crime drama scene: Justified. Graham Yost is the...

Exclusive: After two so-so attempts to adapt James Lee Burke’s Dave Robicheaux terrific mystery novel series into features, the New Orleans-based crime saga is being redrawn for cable TV. Fox-based producer Hutch Parker has optioned Burke’s books and is packaging the series. After how well FX and Graham Yost did with Elmore Leonard’s U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens character in the series Justified, cable sounds like just the place for Robicheaux. There is certainly a wealth of material that can be used to paint the picture of the Vietnam vet-turned police detective who works out of New Orleans and whose temper–and imposing size–often leads him to meet criminals on their own vicious terms. Burke started the series with 1987′s Neon Rain, and Simon & Schuster just released his latest, Creole Belle, the 19th book in the series. Burke’s colorful writing brings to life the French...

Exclusive: After two so-so attempts to adapt James Lee Burke’s Dave Robicheaux terrific mystery novel series into features, the New Orleans-based crime saga is being redrawn for cable TV. Fox-based producer Hutch Parker has optioned Burke’s books and is packaging the series. After how well FX and Graham Yost did with Elmore Leonard’s U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens character in the series Justified, cable sounds like just the place for Robicheaux. There is certainly a wealth of material that can be used to paint the picture of the Vietnam vet-turned police detective who works out of New Orleans and whose temper–and imposing size–often leads him to meet criminals on their own vicious terms. Burke started the series with 1987′s Neon Rain, and Simon & Schuster just released his latest, Creole Belle, the 19th book in the series. Burke’s colorful writing brings to life the French...

New York (AP) — Tina Fey, Jane Fonda and William Shatner are now award winners in the book world.

On Tuesday night, Fey received Audie Awards for Audio Book of the Year and best Biography/Memoir for her narration of her million-selling "Bossypants." Fonda won in the Personal Development category as the reader of her own "Prime Time." Shatner was cited in Humor for "Shatner's Rules." An audiobook about the Titanic, "The Watch That Ends the Night," won for Distinguished Achievement in Production.

Hope Davis' narration of Ann Patchett's "State of Wonder" won for literary fiction and Will Patton's reading of James Lee Burke's "Feast Day of Fools" won for mystery. The awards, in more than 25 categories, were sponsored by the Audio Publishers Association.

Dennis Nishi Marcia Clark at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books

Best known as the head prosecutor in the O.J. Simpson murder trial in 1995, Marcia Clark left her 14-year career at the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office to explore other opportunities, including becoming a writer. She co-authored her experiences involving the Simpson case in “Without a Doubt” in 1998 and has since worked as a consultant, spokesperson and writer for several television shows. Her first novel “Guilt by Association...

Filmmaker Bertrand Tavernier.

Bertrand Tavernier: Taking Rabbits Out Of Hats

By Alex Simon

Bertrand Tavernier was bitten by the cinema bug at a tender age, falling in love with a diverse slate of films and filmmakers like Jean Renoir, Fritz Lang and Buster Keaton. Born in Lyon in 1941, Tavernier abandoned his law studies to write for the now-legendary French cinema magazine Cahiers du Cinema, which also launched auteurs like Francois Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard. Making his directing debut with The Clockmaker of Saint-Paul in 1974, Tavernier’s career has been a prolific one, with 35 films to his credit, and dozens of awards, including the Best Director prize at the 1984 Cannes Film Festival for A Sunday in the Country.

Tavernier’s latest film is the sweeping epic The Princess of Montpensier, an adaptation of a 1662 novel which was published anonymously, but later credited to French noblewoman Madame de La Fayette. Set...

[Find Part 1 here.]

So, once you settled on detective fiction and the hard-boiled film noir take, and then the technology came into being, what specifically about postwar L.A. made you gravitate to that time and place?

Well, for me specifically, when I grew up in the '70s and stuff, I'm a child of Vietnam. Australia is fairly closely linked to America in lots of ways. I read a lot about WWII and this moral authority that America had during the second World War and how they get to Vietnam and where we are now.

For me, it's the chance to explore that underbelly of the American dream. It's about what Hollywood meant--as much of the Golden Age of Hollywood, everything from Gone with the Wind and all that kind of stuff--and what still might carry over from that era. Hollywood kept churning out these bright cheerful movies, but the film noir...

Jason Solomons reports on a new film score from Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood, anger from Bertrand Tavernier and Ian Dury getting a Stateside outing

Are you listening, Academy?

Having had his last score disqualified for the Oscars, Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood moves on undeterred. His potent music for There Will Be Blood should easily have earned an Oscar nomination, but the Academy's composers objected when they found out it was based on one of Greenwood's previous works (called Popcorn Superhet Receiver, actually).

However, after a recent BBC concert premiere of a new piece called Doghouse, Jonny revealed that it would form the basis of a new film score, this time for one of my favourite film-makers, the Vietnamese-born director Anh Hung Tran (The Scent of Green Papaya, At the Height of Summer). They're collaborating on an adaptation of Haruki Murakami's 1987 book Norwegian Wood, about a man whose reminiscences of...

Monte Carlo -- Scribes and stars were in the spotlight at the ninth annual Monaco Forum of Cinema and Literature, a three-day book-to-film extravaganza that wrapped Saturday night in Monte-Carlo.

The festival and simultaneous adaptation market brought together famous faces from the film and literature worlds for three days of premiere screenings, roundtable discussions, book signings, master classes and lavish soirees. Despite the tough economic times, the event, presided by Monaco's Prince Albert II, managed to attract a who's who of French literary and cinematic talents for three days of Monegasque glamour and hospitality.

The program, open to professionals and the public, featured premiere screenings of Ron Howard's "Frost/Nixon," Stephen Frears' "Cheri" and Zabou Breitman's "Someone I Loved," which will open the Col Coa French film festival in L.A. in April. The film's cast, including Daniel Auteuil and Marie-Josee Croze, joined Breitman and the film's producer,...

This week on DVD we've got a sweeping historical epic from Down Under (Baz Luhrmann's Australia, plus an exclusive deleted scene), a tale of talking pooches (Beverly Hills Chihuahua), and a Certified Fresh drama starring Kristin Scott Thomas (I've Loved You So Long). For those whose interests are piqued by the words "direct to DVD," we've also got two new animated adventures (Watchmen: The Complete Motion Comic, Wonder Woman) and a titillating vengeance pic (Stiletto, starring Stana Katic, Tom Berenger, and Michael Biehn), plus a bayou thriller adapted from a James Lee Burke bestseller (In the Electric Mist, starring Tommy...

Film releases certainly aren't limited to theaters these days -- here's a rundown of titles making their way to you via alternative pathways.

On Demand

Our sister company IFC Films made a splash at this year's Sundance with the announcement of a partnership with the SXSW Film Festival to premiere four of the festival's picks concurrent with their debut in Austin. Joe Swanberg's latest, "Alexander the Last," headlines the group making their on demand debut on March 14, along with Australian comedy "Three Blind Mice," Bulgarian noir "Zift" and SXSW '08 alums "Medicine for Melancholy" and "Paper Covers Rock."

On DVD

It's a sign of the times that a serviceable Tommy Lee Jones thriller can sit alongside the latest from Steven Seagal at your local Blockbuster, but "In the Electric Mist" is far more interesting than the actor's paycheck output of the late '90s, even if it is missing...

• I’m not sure if the alarmist print media are truly taking notice, but for the past couple of months, a whole bunch of home video distributors are coming out of the woodworks and joining the theatrical release game. With the majors closing down shops, Variety reports that a company like Image Entertainment will test the theater exhibition business with the Afm deal that gives them the rights to Bertrand Tavernier's serial killer thriller that features a Tommy Lee Jones in the swampy backwoods. This past summer, Image released Werner Herzog’s Encounters at the End of the World, and they will release Tavernier’s In the Electric Mist sometime in spring 2009. I’ve got a fairly complete synopsis from our preview page: scripted by Jerzy Kromolowski, Mary Olson-Kromolowski and Jones, this is an adaptation of James Lee Burke’s novel, which centers on Cajun detective Dave Robicheaux.

...

• #100.In the Electric Mist Director: Bertrand Tavernier (A Sunday in the Country) Screenwriters: Tommy Lee Jones, Jerzy and Mary-Olson Kromolowski Producers: Frédéric Bourboulon (Holy Lola) and Michael Fitzgerald (The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada) Distributor: Currently Seeking Distribution The Gist: Scripted by Jerzy and Mary Olson-Kromolowski and Jones, this is an adaptation of James Lee Burke’s novel, which centers on Cajun detective Dave Robicheaux. New Iberia Lt. Dave Robicheaux is trying to link the murder of a local hooker to New Orleans mobster Julie (Baby Feet) Balboni–back in his home parish as co- producer of Hollywood director Michael Goldman’s Civil War film–when sozzled/psychic movie-star Elrod Sykes, pulled over for drunk driving, starts babbling about a corpse he found in the Atchafalaya Swamp–the corpse of a black man Dave had seen murdered 35 years before. Fact: This is veteran French director's English-language debut. See It:

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