From IMDB:

Lions Gate Buys Another Controversial Film

Lions Gate Films is likely courting public controversy once again with its decision to pay $4 million for David Slade's Hard Candy, which screened last week at the Sundance Film Festival. Boston Globe critic Ty Burr described the movie in today's (Tuesday) edition as one of the few at the festival to "draw blood ... make people uncomfortable and angry." Burr said that although the movie starts out as "a carefree drama," it later "takes a left turn into an altogether different movie -- one that owes as much to horror and suspense as to social-message melodrama -- and it is that movie that divided audiences." Burr quotes one volunteer ticket-taker who remarked after hearing a couple discussing whether to see it, "Dude, I saw that thing. ... Stay away. I mean it: Stay away." Slade said that during a Q&A session after a screening, one man "started screaming at me, 'What gives you the right to make this film?' and I thought he was going to attack me.'" One woman who saw it, however, remarked, "I thought it was fantastic ... but I still haven't decided whether I liked it." Another woman remarked: "Everyone should see it. ... Especially men." Lions Gate President Tom Ortenberg conceded that the movie "will shock many people, but I think that's a good thing."


If you want to know more about it, like I did, you can find more info in this:

HARD CANDY

Dir: David Slade. US. 2005. 103mins.

Whip-crackingly taut psychological drama Hard Candy is the most talked about movie at Sundance this year and one of the most riveting directorial debuts seen at the festival in a few years. A two-hander in which a teenage girl turns the tables on the paedophile who has picked her up on the internet, it will certainly cause a stir in the media wherever it opens throughout the world and, as initial reaction in Park City is indicating, it will provoke adult audiences into a flurry of discussion and debate that will set word-of-mouth on fire.

It’s the directorial debut from British commercials and music video director David Slade, who so superbly sustains the tension between the two protagonists by ingenious use of close-ups, sets, a specific colour palette and perfectly precise camerawork (care of cinematographer Jo Willems) that he delivers a sub-$1m film with the impact of one that might have cost tens of millions more.

Disturbing and discomfiting thought it may be, Hard Candy is also as compelling as any thriller and it’s no wonder distributors were swarming all over it at its midnight screening world premiere last Sunday. After foreign buyers Redbus (UK), Aurum (Spain) and Icon (Australia) sealed pricey territorial deals, sales representatives William Morris Independent and Traction Media closed a $4m deal for the rest of the world with Lions Gate.

As the leading independent distributor in North America, Lions Gate is probably the perfect home for the film. It is unlikely that any studio or specialised division would feel comfortable bringing such a provocative title into their conservative corporate folds.

Not that Slade and screenwriter Brian Nelson have included any graphic elements that will generate prohibitive ratings around the world. Although there are passages of intense psychological violence, the film should comfortably achieve an R rating in the US and equivalent certificates in international markets.

For Slade’s tightly-coiled drama to work, he had to score two remarkable actors to play his lead roles and did so in Patrick Wilson (The Phantom Of The Opera, The Alamo, TV’s Angels In America) and Canadian newcomer Ellen Page.

Page is an intelligent, charming, tomboyish 14 year-old called Hayley who finally agrees one morning to meet Jeff, a guy she’s met on the internet, in a coffee shop in Los Angeles. He is a handsome 32-year-old fashion photographer who treats her as an adult and flatters her. She suggests they go to his house to listen to some music.

Once at the house, a hip modern pad in the Hollywood Hills, she continues to flirt with him, mixes him drinks and starts stripping off some clothes so he can take pictures of her. But when he picks up his camera, Jeff starts to feel faint and passes out.

When he wakes up, he is tied to a chair. Hayley is searching his house for evidence that he is a paedophile, that she is not the first girl he has brought home and that he has something to do with the recent disappearance of Donna Mauer, another teenager who frequented the same coffee shop.

As Hayley continues to taunt and antagonize her helpless prisoner, audience sympathy for her starts to waver, especially when she starts preparing the equipment needed for castrating him.

By the extraordinary climactic showdown between Hayley and Jeff, Slade has thoroughly confused any conventional morality or notion of right and wrong and specialised audiences will be haunted by the maelstrom of emotions they have been put through.

For Vulcan Productions, the Paul Allen-owned, Seattle-based outfit which financed Hard Candy, the film represents the first to emerge from a new initiative into low budget pictures after sporadic success with higher budget pictures like Titus, Far From Heaven and The Safety Of Objects. So far, so good.

Prod cos: Vulcan Productions, Launchpad Productions
US dist: Lions Gate Films
Int’l sales: Lions Gate Films International, excluding Redbus (UK), Aurum (Spain), Icon (Australia)
Exec prods: Jody Patton, Rosanne Korenberg
Prods: David W Higgins, Richard Hutton & Michael Caldwell
Scr: Brian Nelson
Cine: Jo Willems
Prod des: Jeremy Reed
Ed: Art Jones
Main cast: Patrick Wilson, Ellen Page, Sandra Oh, Jennifer Holmes




Wow! This sounds like something else! You've gotta love Lions Gate for having balls and always picking up controversial films. They are one of the best studios out there. And this sounds like it's perfect for them.

I really liked Patrick Wilson in Angels In America. I also found him quite cute there too .

Hard Candy sounds like it will be an excellent, if shocking, film. I will certainly be seeing it. Hopefully it expands enough eventually so I can see it, but if not I will rent it on DVD.

It opens in limited release December 23rd. That seems like such a strange time to release it. I kind of pictured it being released in September/October myself. Or at least not in December around the holidays. It will be fine though as it's obviously going to start out limited and who knows how wide it will end up.

Sounds great though and I definitely want to see it.