Focus has released Alexander Payne’s The Holders on November 10, 2010. This is in the middle the next awards season. It will then expand to November 22 ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday weekends.
Universal Pictures International handles international distribution. Screen understands members of the public were invited so the film’s financier-producer Miramax and sales agent CAA Media Finance could gauge how it might play in front or a paying audience.
Focus acquired worldwide rights excluding Middle East and Turkey – where BeIN Media Group, the 51% majority owner of Miramax – will distribute. Universal Pictures International handles international distribution.
Payne reunites with his Sideways star Paul Giamatti in the 1970-set story about an unpopular New England prep schoolteacher forced to spend Christmas holidays with a stranded, unruly student and the school’s head cook whose son has just died in the Vietnam War. The screenplay was written by David Hemingson and Mark Johnson. Hemingson, Miramax CEO Bill Block, and Dominic Sessa were the producers. Chris Stinson, Tom Williams, Andrew Golov and Thom Zadra served as executive producers.
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