Columbia Pictures Join Team “Foxcatcher”; Make it 2 for 2 with Bennett Miller

Columbia Pictures are making an early bid towards possible 2013 Oscar talk by grabbing the distrib rights to the Bennett Miller directed, Foxcatcher. The studio will co-finance along with Annapurna Pictures – the current champion of arty tentpole flicks. Currently in production in Pittsburgh, Columbia are looking at releasing the pic strategically during the fall season – logically they’ll be looking at the Toronto Int. Film Festival as the lieu for the world premiere, exactly where Miller’s Moneyball got its start.

Gist: Scripted by E. Max Frye and actor/scribe Dan Futterman (Capote), this is based on the 1996 murder of Olympic wrestler David Schultz (Mark Ruffalo) by his friend, John du Pont (Steve Carell), a paranoid schizophrenic who operated a Pennsylvania-based training facility called Team Foxcatcher.

Worth Noting: Du Pont was a convicted murderer, multimillionaire and philanthropist. This wiki entry explores some of his background – including his love/support for amateur sports.

Do We Care?: What appears to be a complicated duel character study and dramatically interesting terrain for Carell, there are only a handful of “studio-films” that we’re anticipating for 2013 and this is one of them, thanks in part to Miller’s direction.