Focus Features Grabs The Rights To Director Derek Cianfrance’s THE PLACE BEYOND THE PINES; Stars Ryan Gosling, Bradley Cooper, Eva Mendes

The director of BLUE VALENTINE, Derek Cianfrance, is back in the movie news and I’m glad of it. Focus Features announced today at the Toronto International Film Festival that they have acquired the U.S. rights to the director’s THE PLACE BEYOND THE PINES. The highly anticipated new drama, starring Academy Award nominee Ryan Gosling, Bradley Cooper, and Eva Mendes, had its world premiere at Toronto last Friday and Saturday and the studio is planning for a 2013 release. You can read the review of it HERE. (HeyUGuys.co.uk)

The film powerfully explores the consequences of motorcycle rider Luke (Mr. Gosling)’s fateful decision to commit a crime to support his child. The incident renders him targeted by policeman Avery (Mr. Cooper), and the two men become locked on a tense collision course which will have a devastating impact on both of their families in the years following. Cianfrance has proven himself to be both an accomplished stylist and a filmmaker of substance. He trained under avant-garde master Stan Brakhage, and can craft moments of pure, transcendent emotion from simple combinations of image and sound. But he also understands the primal pleasure of narrative.

For those looking for a little background on the film, THE PLACE BEYOND THE PINES was written by Mr. Cianfrance, Ben Coccio, and Darius Marder. The movie was produced by Jamie Patricof and Lynette Howell through their Electric City Entertainment, Alex Orlovsky through his Verisimilitude, and SKE’s Sidney Kimmel; Mr. Patricof, Ms. Howell, and Mr. Orlovsky previously produced the award-winning BLUE VALENTINE, which starred Mr. Gosling and Academy Award nominee Michelle Williams.

The cast of THE PLACE BEYOND THE PINES also includes Golden Globe Award nominee Rose Byrne (Damages), Mahershala Ali (Treme), Emory Cohen (Smash), Dane DeHaan (Chronicle), Gabe Fazio, Bruce Greenwood (Flight), Ray Liotta (Killing Them Softly), Ben Mendelsohn (The Dark Knight Rises), and Harris Yulin (Scarface).

Besides THE PLACE BEYOND THE PINES, Focus Features has released some stellar films already this year. Some examples being Moonrise Kingdom, the hit movie from Wes Anderson; Sam Fell and Chris Butler’s delightful ParaNorman, the new 3D stop-motion comedy thriller from animation company LAIKA; Jamie Travis’ contemporary comedy For a Good Time, Call…, starring Ari Graynor and Lauren Anne Miller. Coming up is Closed Circuit, the suspense thriller directed by John Crowley and starring Eric Bana and Rebecca Hall; Paul Weitz’s comedy/drama Admission, starring Tina Fey and Paul Rudd; the historical tale Hyde Park on Hudson, directed by Roger Michell and starring Academy Award nominees Bill Murray and Laura Linney; Gus Van Sant’s Promised Land, the contemporary drama written by and starring Matt Damon and John Krasinski; and Joe Wright’s epic love story Anna Karenina, starring Keira Knightley, Jude Law, and Aaron Taylor-Johnson.