MATT WOLF’S STRANGER THAN FICTION
"SPACESHIP EARTH" LAUNCHES EVERYWHERE MAY 8TH
NEON SETS INNOVATIVE RELEASE STRATEGY IN RESPONSE TO GLOBAL SHUTDOWN
New York, New York (April 21, 2020) - NEON will launch the Sundance hit Spaceship Earth on May 8th across an innovative footprint of both traditional and non-traditional venues. As an homage to NEON's love of cinema, the film will play theatrically in participating drive-ins, and select pop-up city-scape projections (safely accessible by quarantined city dwellers). In addition, NEON has made a special arrangement with exhibitors to launch the film on theater websites plus websites of other affected businesses interested in participating. Current confirmed distribution partners include film festivals, museums and first-time film purveyors like bookstores, restaurants and more. The footprint is rounded out by a simultaneous digital launch on Apple TV, Amazon, Google Play, FandangoNow, Vudu, DIRECTV, DISH and longtime NEON partner Hulu.
WATCH THE TRAILER:
AN Impact Partners’, RadicalMedia and Stacey Reiss Production, Spaceship Earth was directed by Matt Wolf and debuted at Sundance to rave reviews with critics hailing it as “out of this world.” NEON tracked the film and its director long prior to its 2020 Sundance premiere attempting to buy it last year, but little did anyone know just how apt the film and its story would become.
Spaceship Earth is the true, stranger-than-fiction, adventure of eight visionaries who in 1991 spent two years quarantined inside of a self-engineered replica of Earth’s ecosystem called BIOSPHERE 2. The experiment was a worldwide phenomenon, chronicling daily existence in the face of life-threatening ecological disaster and a growing criticism that it was nothing more than a cult.
The bizarre story is both a cautionary tale and a hopeful lesson of how a small group of dreamers can potentially reimagine a new world. It’s an eerily prescient and telling film for the world of today.
NEON’s release strategy was devised as a way to address the current limitations of the theatrical experience with the aim of bringing communities and cinephiles together and help support organizations and businesses in need.
Allowing independent movie theaters, museums, book stores, arts and cultural organizations, non-profits, restaurants and other severely impacted small businesses to participate in the release will give them the opportunity to stay connected with their community and hopefully provide some much-needed financial support.
Additionally, partners will have the option to host private screenings and/or to co-host live online Q&A’s and panels with filmmakers, film subjects and special guests. A partial list of non-traditional partners includes Atlas Obscura, Earth Day Network, Books are Magic, the Explorers Club, Posteritati, Fernbank Museum, NYC Trivia League, Talcott Mountain Science Center, Ground Support Cafe, Explorers Club, Malaprop’s Bookstore/Cafe, SITE Sante Fe, Synergetic Press, City Growers, Bud Werner Memorial Library, Santa Monica French bistro Pasjoli and Brooklyn’s famous eatery Locanda Vinii & Olie. Other small businesses and organizations in the US interested in partnering with NEON can learn more and sign-up at www.NEONrated.com.
“NEON has never released a film without the benefit of theaters and Spaceship Earth is no exception to that rule,” says NEON Founder/CEO Tom Quinn. “As every day becomes a harsh, almost surreal, new reality, it’s clear we must continue launching new films and entertain audiences as best we can. It’s also important we innovate and adapt to support the many businesses in need. Even though Spaceship Earth won’t be playing in theaters across the country we hope by making it available ‘everywhere’ the film's release can at least embody the communal spirit of cinema if not the big screen. We miss our partners in exhibition greatly and look forward to cinema's triumphant return.”
NEON acquired worldwide rights to the film. Details of the film’s global launch plans to be announced later this week.
About NEON
A little less than 3 years since inception, NEON has garnered 12 Oscar nominations and grossed over $150M at the Box Office. It continues to push boundaries and take creative risks on bold cinema such as Bong Joon Ho’s Parasite, which made history winning four Academy Awards®, becoming the first non-English-language film to claim Best Picture. The film, which also unanimously won the Palme d’Or at Cannes, has amassed over $53M at the domestic box office and broke multiple records including highest per screen average of the year and highest per screen average for a foreign language film of all time. Other noteworthy NEON releases include: Double Oscar nominee Honeyland; Todd Douglas Miller’s Apollo 11, 2019's highest grossing documentary with a worldwide gross of $16M; Tim Wardle's Three Identical Strangers, winner of the Sundance Special Jury Award for Storytelling which surpassed $13M at the box office; and Craig Gillespie’s I, Tonya, which garnered multiple Academy Award® nominations, one win for Allison Janney and amassed over $30M in domestic box office.
The company continues to be an impressive force, with recent acquisitions such as: Pig, starring Nicolas Cage; Brandon Cronenberg’s Possessor; Max Barbakow’s sought after Palm Springs starring Andy Samberg, which NEON acquired with Hulu; Josephine Decker’s Shirley starring Elisabeth Moss; and the documentary Gunda directed by Viktor Kossakovsky and executive produced by Joaquin Phoenix. Recent releases include: the critically acclaimed Cannes hit Portrait of a Lady on Fire, which was nominated for Best Foreign Film at the Golden Globes® and Independent Spirit Awards; Tamara Kotevska and Ljubo Stefanov’s award-winning and record- breaking Honeyland, which is the first non-fiction feature to land Academy Award® nominations for Best Documentary and Best International Feature Film in the same year; Alejandro Landes’ cinematic thriller Monos (the Colombian selection for the Academy Awards®); Severin Fiala and Veronika Franz‘s horror film The Lodge starring Riley Keough; Julius Onah’sLuce starring Naomi Watts and Octavia Spencer; Tom Harper’s Wild Rose starring Jessie Buckley; John Chester’s The Biggest Little Farm; Chinonye Chukwu’s Clemency starring Academy Award® Nominee Alfre Woodard; and the electrifying documentary about Aretha Franklin, Amazing Grace.
After their successful collaboration on I, Tonya in January 2018, 30WEST (Dan Friedkin's and Micah Green's strategic venture) partnered with NEON's Tom Quinn (Founder & CEO) and Tim League (Co-Founder) to become majority investors in the company.
