Phase 4 Films has picked up U.S. and Canadian rights to “Bindlestiffs” for its Kevin Smith’s SModcast Pictures Presents banner.
The movie will be released in June, the first under Phase 4''s Kevin Smith banner. Written and directed by Andrew Edison, "Bindlestiffs" centers on three high school virgins who flee to the inner city after getting suspended from school on a graffiti charge. There they try to live out the plot of “The Catcher in the Rye.”
Edison wrote the screenplay with Luke Loftin; they both star in the movie and produced with Mike Akel and Matt Patterson.
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“Bindlestiffs” premiered at Slamdance, where it took home the Audience Award for Best Feature Narrative. Smith and the filmmakers plan on a Q&A tour in conjunction with the theatrical release.
“This mind-bendingly original and gut-bustingly hysterical first film is so confidently made and one-of-a-kind, I cannot wait to stand on a stage beside the ‘Bindlestiffs’ boys and smell the room after the audience has pissed themselves laughing at their debut film," Smith said.
For his part, Berry Meyerowitz, President and CEO of Phase 4 Films, touted the movie as “raunchy, outrageous and shockingly funny.”
Phase 4 and SModcast Pictures’ distribution partnership, which was announced in early 2012, calls for Phase 4 to acquire exclusive rights to exhibit and distribute up to 12 films per year under Smith’s banner. Phase 4 will release four of these films theatrically each year, and these will include a live tour with Smith.