Festival Predictions

2019 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: #10. Harmony Korine – The Beach Bum

Published on November 20, 2018

With Utah having more relaxed laws for marijuana use, perhaps a weed laced smell-o-vision Park City screening isn’t such a far-fetched idea after all. A half dozen years after neon glazed Spring Breakers (review) gave the filmmaker a significant career boost, Harmony Korine‘s heavily anticipated The Beach Bum (with pee sequence) will likely to shore up at SXSW — as Neon have tapped a late March release. Korine’s films have been more Euro or TIFF-centric and of the top of our heads, we can only think back to 1995 when a less than 100K Larry Clark’s Kids was picked up by Miramax for 3.5 million as his last possible trip. Casting on The Beach Bum began in early 2017 with Matthew McConaughey nabbing the top stoner role, and production commenced in late 2017. Isla Fisher, Snoop Dogg, Zac Efron and Jonah Hill add to our hedonistic desires. The trailer dropped this past September.

Gist: This follows the hilarious misadventures of Moondog (Matthew McConaughey), a rebellious rogue who always lives life by his own rules.

Production Co./Producers: LeGrisbi Productions’ John Lesher (White Boy Rick), Anonymous Content’s Steve Golin (Boy Erased), Iconoclast’s Charles-Marie Anthonioz, Mourad Belkeddar (The World Is Yours) and Nicolas Lhermitte.

Prediction: Premiere or secret screening selection.

U.S. Distributor: March 22nd via Neon and VICE Media.

Eric Lavallée

Eric Lavallée is the founder, CEO, editor-in-chief, film journalist and critic at IONCINEMA.com (founded in 2000). Eric is a regular at Sundance, Cannes and TIFF. He has a BFA in Film Studies at the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema. In 2013 he served as a Narrative Competition Jury Member at the SXSW Film Festival. He was an associate producer on Mark Jackson's This Teacher (2018 LA Film Festival, 2018 BFI London). In 2022 he served as a New Flesh Comp for Best First Feature at the 2022 Fantasia Intl. Film Festival. Current top films for 2022 include Tár (Todd Field), All That Breathes (Shaunak Sen), Aftersun (Charlotte Wells).