In just five short years, NEON has become a premier independent film creator and distributor, with releases including critically acclaimed titles like Parasite, Spencer, and Flee. During a CinemaCon presentation today, president of distribution Elissa Federoff and SVP of distribution Sumyi Antonson gave attendees a first look at the upcoming film slate.
(NEON)
Crimes of the Future
Sci-fi horror director David Cronenberg (The Fly) was joined by producer Robert Lantos to unveil the full trailer for Crimes of the Future, which will hold its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival next month and be released theatrically on June 3rd. In his introduction to the trailer, Cronenberg thanked NEON for introducing him to Las Vegas and Caesar’s Palace, saying “It seems like the perfect place to launch our attack on the world.”
The screenplay for Crimes of the Future was written by David Cronenberg over twenty years ago, set in a dystopian future where the human body undergoes mutations while adapting to a synthetic environment. When Cronenberg first wrote the script, he imagined filming it in Toronto. Instead, he filmed in Athens, which he described as being perfect because it’s hard to find any man-made city as old as the capital of Greece. The film stars Viggo Mortensen, Kristen Stewart, and Léa Seydoux.
Having debuted at the Sundance Film Festival and won the Jonathan Oppenheim Editing Award, Sara Dosa’s documentary film about volcanologist couple Katia and Maurice Krafft was picked up by National Geographic Documentary Films and will have a theatrical run through NEON this July. A new trailer debuted for the film, which will stream worldwide on Disney+ following its theatrical run. You can read my review of the film from Sundance here.
Moonage Daydream
The first documentary film sanctioned by David Bowie’s estate, Moonage Daydream is described as a “sonic and visual extravaganza” and the footage shown certainly supports that statement. Directed and edited by Brett Morgen (Jane), the film is put together from over five million assets, including never before seen footage and never before heard audio masters.
Brett Morgan took the stage to explain how David Bowie empowered him to be himself in the 1970s, a mainstream concept now, but a radical idea back then. In the same way that David Bowie was hard to define, so, too, is Moonage Daydream, which was designed to be a cinematic experience and one that fans can see this fall in theaters and IMAX. Through two sequences screened (a prologue set to “Hallo Spaceboy” and a performance of “Heroes”), we also got to hear the incredible audio arrangement, with Brett sharing that he teamed up with the Oscar-winning team behind the sound design for Bohemian Rhapsody.
Stay tuned to LaughingPlace.com this week for more news out of CinemaCon.