EXCLUSIVE: Bleecker Street has set a Dec. 6 nationwide release of The Return, which reunites Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche for the first time since the 1996 multi-Oscar winner The English Patient. Overall it’s their third collaboration together counting the 1992 movie Wuthering Heights in which they both starred. In addition to the release date change, first look photos of the epic were unveiled.
Directed by Uberto Pasolini, The Return follows Odysseus (Fiennes) who washes up on the shores of Ithaca after 20 years away; haggard and unrecognizable. The King has returned from the Trojan War, but much has changed in his kingdom. His beloved wife Penelope (Binoche) is a prisoner in her own home, hounded by suitors vying to be king. Their son Telemachus (Charlie Plummer) faces death at the hands of these suitors, who see him as merely an obstacle to their pursuit of the kingdom. Odysseus has also changed—scarred by his experience of the Trojan war, he is no longer the mighty warrior from years past— but he must rediscover his strength to win back all he has lost.
Pic also stars Marwan Kenzari with Claudio Santamaria and with Ángela Molina.
The Return was produced by Picomedia, Rai Cinema, Heretic, Ithaca Films, Kabo Films, and Marvelous Productions. The Redwave Films Production-HanWay Films is handling foreign sales on the film. Producers are Pasolini, James Clayton, Roberto Sessa and Konstantinos Kontovrakis. John Collee, Edward Bond and Pasolini wrote the script. EPs are Fiennes, Giorgos Karnavas, Torsten Poeck, Andrew Karpen, Kent Sanderson, Nicholas Sandler and Keith Kehoe.
Already on the calendar for Dec. 6 is the A24 raunchy comedy, Y2K, the limited release of Searchlight horror movie, Nightbitch, starring Amy Adams, and Briarcliff Entertainment’s Frank Grillo movie Werewolves.