UPDATING previous exclusive with trailer: Watch the first trailer Nuclear Now, the pro-nuclear energy documentary from three-time Academy Award winner Oliver Stone. Abramorama and Giant Pictures on March 3 acquired North American rights to the pic, which premiered (as Nuclear) at last year’s Venice Film Festival.
Abramorama will open the film theatrically in New York, Los Angeles, and select markets beginning April 28, bringing it to theaters across the U.S. and Canada on its “Nuclear Now Day” of May 1st, with Giant Pictures then bringing it to digital and streaming platforms.
Abramorama
The film that Stone wrote with professor & Ph.D. Joshua S. Goldstein is based on the latter’s 2019 book A Bright Future, which makes the case for nuclear power as a vital energy solution in the face of climate change. Stone used unprecedented access to the nuclear industry in France, Russia and the United States to explore the possibility for the global community to overcome the challenges of climate change and energy poverty to reach a brighter future through the power of nuclear energy.
Stone’s longtime producing partner Fernando Sulichin of New Element Media helped finance and produce the project, with Participant also serving as a financier. Additional producers included Maximilien Arvelaiz and Rob Wilson, with Participant’s Jeff Skoll, Zachary Bogue, Agata Woloszczuk, Roksana Ciurysek-Gedir, Philippe Delmas, Lawrence M. Kopeikin and Eric Hamburg serving as EPs.
Mediawan Rights — the distribution division of Europe’s independent premium content studio, Mediawan — will rep sales for Nuclear Now outside of North America at the upcoming CPH:DOX, Filmart Hong Kong and MIP film markets. ROCO Films will handle the film’s Educational & EVOD release following its theatrical run.
Also coming up is a Nuclear Now impact campaign that Participant is spearheading in collaboration with Think-Film Impact Production, Roco and other partners that will bring together institutions, organizations and others in positions of power to access the film and explore solutions to combat the energy and the climate crisis. (Participant and Think-Film previously collaborated on the European impact campaign for Participant’s legal thriller Dark Waters, examining fall-out from DuPont’s chemical contamination of a West Virginia town.)
Stone said in a statement to Deadline that “climate change has brutally forced us to take a new look at the ways in which we generate energy as a global community. Long regarded as dangerous in popular culture, nuclear power is in fact hundreds of times safer than fossil fuels and accidents are extremely rare.
“This is, in my mind, the greatest story of our time,” continued the filmmaker, “discussing humanity’s arc from poverty to prosperity and its mastery of science to overcome the modern demand for more and more energy. I am thrilled that Richard Abramowitz and the teams at Abramorama, Mediawan, ROCO, Giant, Think-Film Impact Production and Participant have come on board to help share this important message with audiences across the country and around the world.”
“A key question facing us as global citizens is how we protect and resource for our future,” observed Participant CEO David Linde. “NUCLEAR NOW provides a pathway for audiences to have the conversation about how world powers can contribute to finding different solutions to the existential crisis of climate change. We are grateful to the filmmakers and the teams at Abramorama, and Mediawan, and looking forward to partnering again with Think-Film Impact Production to create an impact campaign that will further engage audiences with these questions.”
“We take very seriously, and with gratitude, the opportunity to work with Oliver Stone and Fernando Sulichin on a film with the potential to cause a paradigm shift in the perception of something as profound as nuclear energy,” added Abramorama partners, CEO Richard Abramowitz and COO Karol Martesko-Fenster. “We’re honored to be part of this movement and eager to help get this message out into the world.”
Gersh’s Bart Walker, Participant’s Rob Williams and attorney Larry Kopeikin negotiated the Nuclear Now deal on behalf of Stone and the film team.