In Toronto, Fox Searchlight pins 'The Wrestler'
The specialty division pays a reputed $4 million to $5 million to distribute the film in which Mickey Rourke plays a broken-down fighter.
TORONTO — INDEPENDENT film may be grappling with an inability to perform at the box office, but that didn't stop "The Wrestler" from inspiring an all-night bidding war after it screened at the Toronto International Film Festival on Sunday night.
Fox Searchlight ended up buying the U.S distribution rights to the Darren Aronofsky film, which had already won the prestigious Golden Lion prize at last week's Venice Film Festival. The movie, which features a riveting performance from Mickey Rourke as an over-the-hill wrestler, was considered the hottest potential buy at the festival. Searchlight chief Peter Rice was not available for comment, but rival bidders say the sale was completed in the wee hours Monday morning, with the film going for a purchase price in the $4-million to $5-million range.
Sony Pictures and Lionsgate were also leading bidders, but Searchlight, which has emerged in recent years as the specialty world's leading marketing and distribution entity, came away with the prize. It is expected that Searchlight will release the film later this year, at least in L.A. and New York for an Academy Award qualifying run. The sale gives Searchlight two of the top attractions here: The company recently took over U.S. marketing and distribution for Danny Boyle's "Slumdog Millionaire," the surprise hit of the recent Telluride Film Festival, which Searchlight will release Nov. 28. The studio shares the film with Warner Bros., which didn't have enough space on its schedule or passion for the project. In "The Wrestler," Rourke is an over-the-hill fighter whose best days are way behind him. With his shoulder-length, dirty-blond curls, a fake tan and a scarred body bulked up on cheap steroids, he looks less like Gorgeous George than the dissolute leader of an '80s hair band gone to seed. The movie is loaded with cheesy '80s rock (think Ratt, Poison or Mötley Crüe), which blares out of Rourke's dinged-up van and the strip club where his friend Cassidy (Marisa Tomei) works as a pole dancer.
But like Aronofsky's earlier "Requiem for a Dream," the film really has the mien of a '70s picture -- it's about lost souls and beautiful losers. When Rourke and his aging wrestler pals show up for an autograph session, with their scars, prosthetic limbs and wheelchairs, they're truly the walking wounded -- they look like a squadron of bedraggled Vietnam vets.
