“Magazine Dreams” is turning the page.
The drama, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2023, quickly became one of the most buzzed-about films at the festival and was promptly acquired by Searchlight Pictures. But after its star Jonathan Majors was found guilty of assault and harassment, the studio dropped the movie from its release schedule. It was initially thought of as a potential Oscar powerhouse, especially for Majors’ towering lead performance.
Now, Briarcliff Entertainment, which is releasing the similarly hot-button Donald Trump movie “The Apprentice” later this month, has acquired the rights to “Magazine Dreams.” Briarcliff is planning an early 2025 release.
The film is the directorial debut of writer Elijah Bynum, who recently co-wrote Lee Daniels’ Netflix horror movie “The Deliverance.” It follows a bodybuilder (Majors) who slips into a world of obsession and violence in his quest for body perfection. The movie also stars Haley Bennett, Taylour Paige, bodybuilder Mike O’Hearn and Harrison Page.
“Magazine Dreams” was seen as part of the upward trajectory of Majors’ career, which also included his assignment as Kang, the big villain in a string of Marvel Studios projects. (He wound up portraying the character in two seasons of “Loki” and in “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.”) The actor had also appeared in “The Last Black Man in San Francisco,” “Devotion,” “The Harder They Fall” and “Creed III.” But following his arrest and the subsequent guilty verdict, he was fired by Marvel Studios, with his character being written out of the ongoing narrative, to be replaced by Robert Downey Jr.’s Doctor Doom in the upcoming “Avengers” sequels.
A release date for “Magazine Dreams” has not been established.
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