After teaming for a pair of Sundance titles The Lifeguard and C.O.G., the partnership of Focus World & Screen Media now turn towards unpurchased Tribeca Film Festival U.S. indie leftovers acquiring the rights to Rob Meyer’s A Birder’s Guide to Everything. They’ve pegged it with an eventual spring release in ’14.
Gist: Scripted by Luke Matheny and starring Kodi Smit-McPhee, Alex Wolff, Michael Chen, Katie Chang (The Bling Ring), Ben Kingsley, James LeGros and Daniela Lavender, on the eve of his widower father’s second wedding, fifteen-year-old David Portnoy spots what may just be the extinct Labrador duck. Now he and the two other stalwart members of the local Young Birders Society, joined by their headstrong photographer classmate Ellen, take off on a rollicking, interstate road trip in search of a rare bird and elusive answers to teenage questions large and small.
Worth Noting: The film placed an unscientific 2nd for Tribeca Film Festival’s Heineken Audience Award.
Do We Care?: It’s been an especially strong year for coming-of-agers (Short Term 12, The Kings of Summer and The Spectacular Now) so we’re still open to future Stand by Me types – Variety called this an “amiable teen laffer, remarkably free of snark.”
