2017 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: Charlie McDowell’s The Discovery

Up until the recent unveiling of A Walk into the Woods at the fest, I’m fairly certain that to see a Robert Redford film play at Robert Redford’s film festival was indeed a rarity. With the announced retirement from in front of the camera, we know that it won’t be the exception to the rule so in the grand scheme of things, there is a good chance that Charlie McDowell‘s sophomore feature might turn out to be this last meta Redford offering offered to Park City. Conceptually speaking, The One I Love (2014) was the type of couples last retreat calling card that didn’t go unnoticed and fast forward just a couple of years and we move into more weighty indie territory. Featuring real life muse Rooney Mara, Robert Redford, Jason Segel, Jesse Plemons, Riley Keough and Ron Canada, shooting on The Discovery took place last March and since then, Netflix plucked the world rights shortly after, and McDowell took on shooting gig for episodes of HBO’s Silicon Valley. Expect a highly original second film from this budding talent.

Gist: Written by McDowell and Justin Lader, the film is set in a world two years after the existence of an afterlife has been scientifically proven, resulting in millions of people taking their own lives, believing that suicide is like pushing a reset button. Segel will play the son of the man responsible for the discovery (Redford). Mara will plays a woman whom Segel’s character falls in love with and whose life is tinged by a tragic past.

Production Co./Producers: Verisimilitude’s Alex Orlovsky (The Wolfpack), Endgame Entertainment’s James D. Stern (An Education).

Prediction: Premiere category or fitted for another major film festival that coincides with a firm Netflix premiere date.

U.S. Distributor: Netflix

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