Focus Features’ ‘Suffragette’ Gets 2015 Awards Season Release Date

Focus Features, which was reprieved from a weak 2014 slate by Working Title’s Oscar-winning “The Theory of Everything,” has made a bid to compete in the fall 2015 awards fray by acquiring North American distribution rights from Pathé to British period drama “Suffragette,” directed by Sarah Gavron (“Brick Lane”). The film will open in select cities on October 23, 2015 with expansions to follow.

Focus is also releasing Working Title’s true romance “The Danish Girl,” directed by Tom Hooper and starring Oscar-winning Eddie Redmayne and Alicia Vikander as artists Einar and Gerda Wegener.

Written by Emmy-winner Abi Morgan (“The Hour,” “Shame,” “The Iron Lady”), “Suffragette” stars Oscar-race vets Carey Mulligan, Meryl Streep and Helena Bonham Carter as well as Ben Whishaw, Anne-Marie Duff and Brendan Gleeson. Mulligan also toplines Fox Searchlight’s probable Oscar contender “Far from the Madding Crowd” as the formidable Bathsheba.

Produced by Ruby Films’ Alison Owen (“Elizabeth,” “Saving Mr. Banks,” “Shaun of the Dead”) and Faye Ward, the film is executive produced by Cameron McCracken, Tessa Ross, Rose Garnett, Nik Bower, ex-Focus chief James Schamus, and Teresa Moneo.

 

“Suffragette” is a Ruby Films production for Focus Features, Pathé, Film4, and the BFI in association with Ingenious Media and with the participation of Canal+ and Cine-Cinema.

Other upcoming releases from Focus include a roster of genre films, including Leigh Whannell’s horrific “Insidious: Chapter 3,” Tarsem Singh’s “Self/less,” starring Ryan Reynolds and Ben Kingsley; “Sinister 2,” directed by Ciaran Foy; and “London Has Fallen,” the sequel to “Olympus Has Fallen,” starring Gerard Butler and directed by Babak Najafi, plus “Kubo and the Two Strings,” a family movie from animation studio LAIKA, directed by Travis Knight with a voice cast that includes Matthew McConaughey, Charlize Theron, Rooney Mara, Ralph Fiennes, Brenda Vaccaro, and Art Parkinson. 

Promising dramas for 2016 include Stephen Hopkins’ “Race,” starring Jeremy Irons, Jason Sudeikis, and Stephan James as the legendary athletic superstar Jesse Owens, and Juan Antonio Bayona’s family story “A Monster Calls,” starring Lewis MacDougall, Felicity Jones, and Liam Neeson.