Neon and Vice Media have teamed up to buy U.S. rights to writer-director Harmony Korine’s “The Beach Bum” starring Matthew McConaughey as a rebellious but lovable rogue named Moondog.
The film, a follow-up to Korine’s 2012 indie hit “Spring Breakers,” is due to begin production this fall with a theatrical release planned for 2018.
LeGrisbi Productions’ John Lesher, Anonymous Content’s Steve Golin, Iconoclast’s Charles-Marie Anthonioz, Mourad Belkeddar and Nicolas Lhermitte will produce. The film is executive produced by Tom Quinn and Tim League for Neon, and Shane Smith, Eddy Moretti, and Danny Gabai for Vice Media. Rocket Science is handling international sales, after introducing the film in Berlin in February.
“We’ve been huge fans of the singularly talented Harmony Korine for a very long time now,” Quinn and League said in a statement. “Together with our good friends at Vice we’re tickled to death to launch ‘The Beach Bum,’ which promises to be a wild, crazy and intoxicating piece of cinema.”
Vice Chief Creative Officer Eddy Moretti said: “Harmony is like family to me, and to all of us at Vice for over a decade. And finally we can work together creatively on his most ambitious, hilarious, and oddly existential film.”
The deal, one of the first announced out of this year’s Cannes Film Festival, was negotiated by NEON and CAA on behalf of the filmmakers.