Cronenberg’s Cannes Winner ‘Maps to the Stars’ Takes Focus World Route, Skips Oscars

Julianne Moore can kiss goodbye to any hopes she was nursing for an Oscar campaign for David Cronenberg‘s Cannes Best Actress winner “Maps to the Stars,” which is set to play Toronto and New York festivals. Canadian distributor eOne was going to distribute the film stateside, but it has now sold U.S. rights not to Universal specialty distributor Focus Features–the arm that would handle an Oscar effort–but Focus World, their digital distribution arm, which plans an early 2015 release.

The entertaining satire of Hollywood boasts a strong cast including Cronenberg fave Rob Pattinson, who canoodles on screen with both an anxiety-ridden movie star (Moore) and the troubled daughter (Mia Wasikowska) of psychotherapist/coach to the stars (John Cusack) and his wife (Olivia Williams), who manages his son’s career. Ordinarily you would expect this to have a strong theatrical release, but this kind of movie does well on VOD, with smaller marketing costs.

Co-financed by Entertainment One (eOne) and Prospero Pictures, “Maps to the Stars” was produced by Prospero’s Martin Katz, SBS Productions’ Saïd Ben Saïd and Michel Merkt. Sentient Entertainment’s Renee Tab and eOne’s Benedict Carver executive-produced the film., which eOne Films International will directly distribute in Canada, the U.K., and Australia and New Zealand.