Steve Carell Magician Comedy ‘Burt Wonderstone’ to Open 2013 SXSW Fest

The Incredible Burt Wonderstone, New Line’s magician comedy starring Steve Carell and Jim Carrey, will open 2013’s South by Southwest Film Conference and Festival.

The remake of horror classic Evil Dead and the Napster documentary Downloaded by Alex Winter are among the movies that will have their world premieres during the festival, which runs March 8-16 in Austin, Texas, and is celebrating its 20th anniversary.  

Wonderstone, whose cast also includes Steve Buscemi, Alan Arkin and James Gandolfini, is one of the bigger studio titles of the late winter-spring season and is getting a March 15 opening from Warner Bros. 21 Jump Street was the studio comedy that premiered at last year’s SXSW and went on to earn rave reviews and become a box office hit.

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Evil Dead is another anticipated title, thanks to its gory and envelope-pushing red band trailers. The movie is the feature debut of Fede Alvarez, the Uruguayan behind the sci-fi short Panic Attack!

Other movies premiering at the festival include:

Drinking Buddies, a comedy from writer-director Joe Swanberg that stars Olivia Wilde, Anna Kendrick and Ron Livingston; Ryan White’s documentary Good Ol’ Freda, chronicling the never-before-told story of The Beatles’ secretary Freda Kelly, and drama Everyone’s Going to Die, the first feature from U.K. directing collective Jones.

Meanwhle, Spring Breakers, the Harmony Korine film starring James Franco, Selena Gomez and Vanessa Hudgens, will have its U.S. premiere at the fest.

Other titles will be unveiled Jan. 31. Midnighter features will be announced on Feb. 6.

The festival is also planning over 150 panels and workshops. Among the line-up so far: A Conversation with Matthew McConaughey; Humanizing Heroes: Storytelling Beyond Sports (ESPN Films’ Connor Schell, NFL Film’s Ken Rodgers and Ross Greenburg’s Production’s Ross Greenburg discuss the evolution of storytelling in sports filmmaking); and Jeffrey Tambor’s Acting Workshop.

Also of note: Bates Motel: Story to Screen With Carlton Cuse, during which a Q&A with showrunner Cuse and A&E Marketing EVP Guy Slattery will follow a screening of the A&E series.