UPDATE: In a new update published for contributors to the project’s Indiegogo campaign this evening, Don Cheadle says the film will be released in the spring of 2016, and not this year, as I thought it might, even if only for an Oscar-qualifying run. He doesn’t give a specific date, however.
In August, Sony Pictures Classics acquired worldwide distribution rights to "Miles Ahead," which will make its World Premiere as the Closing Night film at the ongoing 53rd New York Film Festival, tomorrow evening, when critics and audiences will get their first look at the much-anticipated movie.
I’m scheduled to see it tomorrow, and will share thoughts sometime after.
I suspect it’ll screen at one or three more festivals after the NYFF; maybe a special screening at Sundance 2016, Berlin in February, or even Cannes in May, and then will be released in the USA soon after that.
So it looks like, unless you’re lucky enough to attend any festivals screenings between now and next spring (assuming there are any), most of you will be have to wait longer than you probably thought you’d have to.
Cheadle’s unconventional bio (he’s insisted that it not be called a traditional biopic), for which he finally raised the funds needed for completion last year (after many years in limbo) wrapped principal photography last August (2014). The story follows Miles Davis (played by Cheadle), after his record label steals his comeback album before he’s ready for it to be heard, as he hunts it down with the help of a music journalist (played by Ewan McGregor).
Emayatzy Corinealdi (as Frances Taylor) and Keith Stanfield also co-star.
If you haven’t yet read our interview with Don Cheadle about the project, you should. He fills in several blanks that you’ll appreciate, if it’s a film you’re excited about. Read it here.
Cheadle is producing the film through his Crescendo Productions banner, along with Bifrost’s Daniel Wagner, and Robert Ogden Barnum. Also producing are Darryl Porter and Vince Wilburn on behalf of the Davis estate, Lenore Zerman and Pam Hirsch.
The New York Film Festival had this to say about the film: "You get to know the man inside and out and then you reveal him in full, which is exactly what Don Cheadle does as a director, a writer, and an actor with this remarkable portrait of Davis, refracted through his crazy days in the late-70s. Holed up in his Manhattan apartment, wracked with pain from a variety of ailments and fiending for the next check from his record company, dodging sycophants and industry executives, he is haunted by memories of old glories and humiliations and of his years with his great love (Emayatzy Corinealdi). Every second of Cheadle’s cinematic mosaic is passionately engaged with its subject: this is, truly, one of the finest films ever made about the life of an artist."
No trailer yet, but 2 clips from the film are online and embedded below:
