Netflix has bagged Thomas M. Wright’s suspenseful Cannes thriller The Stranger and will premiere it worldwide in October.
The Australian drama had its world premiere in the Official Selection at the Cannes Film Festival this year, where Deadline critic Anna Smith said it showed “an tacitly compelling insight” into the nature of policing.
The film premieres today at the Melbourne International Film Festival in Australia and is shown in cinemas locally before launching on Netflix worldwide (excluding Italy, Benelux, Portugal, Greece, Israel and the Middle East).
Produced by See-Saw Films, Anonymous Content and Blue Tongue Films, whose founder Joel Edgerton stars alongside Sean Harris, the film is about two strangers who strike up a conversation on a long journey. One is a suspect in an unsolved missing person case and the other is the undercover agent who is on his trail. Their troubled friendship becomes the nucleus of a carefully crafted thriller based on the true story of one of Australia’s largest investigations and undercover operations.
Writer/director Wright said, “With The Stranger, I wanted to make a psychological crime thriller that takes the audience to a hidden place – a film that is authentic and realistic in its details, but also immersive and cinematic. A film that required attention and investment. A film that an audience could lean into – and fall into.
“I focused the film on people who didn’t know the victim but who gave years of their lives — and their mental and physical health — to him; because although violence is the reason for this film, it is not its subject. His theme is the connections between people. To me that means that this is a film that is filled with empathy.”
He added: “For an Australian independent film to premiere in the Cannes Official Selection and then be released as a Netflix film to the largest audiences anywhere is unprecedented. We couldn’t be prouder of this film and of working with Netflix to bring it to an international audience.”
The film is produced by Rachel Gardner, See-Saw’s Iain Canning and Blue Tongue’s Emile Sherman, Edgerton; and Kim Hodgert and Kerry Kohansky-Roberts of Anonymous Content. Executive Producers are See-Saw’s Simon Gillis, Rocket Science’s Thorsten Schuhmacher, Lars Sylvest, Trinity Media Financing’s Morgan Emmery and Jean-Charles Levy.
CAA Media Finance and Rocket Science brokered the deal with Netflix.
Edgerton is represented by Anonymous Content, WME, Shanahan and Hirsch Wallerstein Hayum. Harris is represented by B-Side Management and Management 360. Thomas M. Wright is represented by Stacey Testro International and UTA.
