'John Dies At The End' Won't Die Without Release, Magnet Picks Up Festival Favorite

It's a cult classic in the making

By Kate Erbland Aug 26, 2012 8:59PM

Don Coscarelli's "John Dies at the End" premiered way back in January at the Sundance Film Festival and, while a number of other films that bowed at that same fest are now hitting theaters (or have even already completed their theatrical run), Coscarelli's take on David Wong's bestselling book of the same name has languished without a distributor for many months. And while that - paired with the news that the film, which supposedly arrived at Sundance as a work in progress, has undergone some changes - might be cause for concern, that's just not the case with "John Dies."

Magnet Releasing has now acquired worldwide rights to the film, which comes to us care of cult legend Coscarelli ("Bubba Ho-Tep", the "Phantasm" series) with a cast comprised of talents known and emerging, including Paul Giamatti, Chase Williamson, Rob Mayes, Clancy Brown, Glynn Turman, and Doug Jones. For fans of Wong's book and Coscarelli's work, this news was worth the wait, as "John Dies" is the perfect type of film for Magnet, known for releasing films that are, for a lack of a better comparison, cult classics in the making.

In the film, "Paul Giamatti plays Arnie, a shadowy figure investigating a street drug known as Soy Sauce. Promising an out-of-body experience with each hit, Soy Sauce causes users to drift across time and dimensions. But some who come back are no longer human. Suddenly a silent otherworldly invasion is underway, and mankind needs a hero. What it gets instead is John and Dave (Mayes and Williamson), a pair of college dropouts who can barely hold down jobs. Can these two stop the oncoming horror in time to save humanity? No. No, they can’t." The film is off-the-walls bonkers, visually interesting, and oddly sweet. Coscarelli premiered a new cut of the film in March at the SXSW Film Festival, and it was easily the most raucous and imaginative entry in their Midnighter section.

The film will next show at the Toronto International Film Festival next month, where the final cut will premiere as the closing night film of Midnight Madness. Magnet will release the film later this year through its Ultra VOD program, debuting it on all VOD platforms in late December, with a theatrical release to follow in early 2013.

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