Paramount to Distribute Anomalisa as a December Release

Charlie Kaufman’s Anomalisa has already taken film critics by storm and is on track to win the Los Angeles Film Critics award for Best Picture (bet ya). It will go head to head with the animated feature favorite to win right now, Pixar’s blockbusting game changer, Inside Out, which currently holds 3rd place among the highest grossing films of the year.

Anomalisa is already the favorite of many who will be voting in the LAFC awards and they’re inclined toward breaking with the typical Oscar frontrunner — as opposed to New York film critics who tend to align with Oscar more frequently. Anomalisa has a 98 on Metacritic and will go down as — I suspect — the film with the year’s best reviews, at least by that site’s math.

You have to hand it to Charlie Kaufman for refusing to color inside the lines. Kudos to Paramount for taking on such a difficult sell.

Press release as follows:

 Paramount Pictures, a division of Viacom, announced it will distribute worldwide the film ANOMALISA from directors Charlie Kaufman and Duke Johnson.  ANOMALISA has emerged as the most lauded film to debut this Fall, winning near universal critical acclaim.  After world premiering at the Telluride Film Festival, the film won the Grand Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival where it screened in competition.  It also just screened at the Toronto International Film Festival as a Special Presentation and will next show at Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas and at the San Sebastian Film Festival. Domestically, the film will be released on December 30, 2015 in New York and Los Angeles.

 

Said Brad Grey, CEO and Chairman of Paramount Pictures, “The film is a spectacular achievement of artistry, one that we are incredibly pleased to be a part of. Charlie is a filmmaker of immense vision and craft and he and Duke have created a film that stands alone as one of the year’s best”.

 

“ANOMALISA has been a three year labor of love and we are thrilled the film has now found a home at Paramount with people who are passionate about the film and are committed to sharing it with the world,” said directors Charlie Kaufman and Duke Johnson with producer Rosa Tran.

 

Michael Stone, husband, father and respected author of “How May I Help You Help Them?,” is a man crippled by the mundanity of his life. On a business trip to Cincinnati, where he’s scheduled to speak at a convention of customer service professionals, he checks into the Fregoli Hotel. There, he is amazed to discover a possible escape from his desperation in the form of an unassuming Akron baked goods sales rep, Lisa, who may or may not be the love of his life. A beautifully tender and absurdly humorous dreamscape, from the brilliant minds of Charlie Kaufman (SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK ) and Duke Johnson (“Community” episode, Abed’s Uncontrollable Christmas), this stop-motion animation wonder features the vocal cast of Jennifer Jason Leigh, Tom Noonan and David Thewlis and a stirring strings-based score by Carter Burwell.  The darkly comedic and surreal stop-motion journey of a man’s long night of the soul, ANOMALISA confirms Charlie Kaufman’s place amongst the most important of American filmmakers, and announces Duke Johnson as a major creative force. 

 

The film, partially funded via a Kickstarter campaign, is a Starburns  Industries, Snoot Entertainment production, and is produced by Rosa Tran, Johnson, Kaufman, and Dino Stamatopoulos. The film is executive produced by James A. Fino, Dan Harmon, Joe Russo II, Keith Calder, Jessica Calder, Aaron Mitchell, Kassandra Mitchell, Pandora Edmiston, David Fuchs, Simon Ore, David Rheingold, and Adrian Versteegh.