Cannes: Bleecker Street Takes Stone Age Horror Thriller ‘The Origin’ for North America

Bleecker Street has nabbed North American rights to first-time feature director Andrew Cumming’s Stone Age-set horror thriller The Origin.

The film from Sony Pictures’ Stage 6 had its world premiere at the 2022 BFI London Film Festival and was nominated for five British Independent Film Awards, winning one in the best breakthrough performance category for Safia Oakley-Green (Sherwood, Extraordinary). The script was written by Ruth Greenberg (Run), with Escape Plan Productions’ Oliver Kassman (Saint Maud) producing.

Bleecker Street is planning a fall/winter theatrical release, it unveiled on Tuesday as the Cannes Film Festival market was set to open.

Set more than 45,000 years in the past, the movie tells the story of a gang of early humans who band together in search of a new land. “When they suspect a malevolent, mystical, being is hunting them down, the clan is forced to confront a horrifying danger they never imagined,” according to a plot description.

The film’s young cast also includes Chuku Modu (Captain Marvel, Game of Thrones), Kit Young (Shadow and Bone, The School for Good and Evil), Iola Evans (Choose or Die, Carnival Row), Luna Mwezi (Needle Park Baby, Emma Lugt), Arno Luening (Divine Comedy, Bad Girls) and newcomers Rosebud Melarkey and Tyrell Mhlanga.

David Kaplan (It Comes at Night, It Follows), Sam Intili (I Saw the TV Glow), Kristin Irving for the BFI and Leslie Finlay for Screen Scotland served as executive producers. The acquisition was negotiated by Kent Sanderson and Avy Eschenasy on behalf of Bleecker Street with Stage 6.

The Origin joins the indie’s 2023 release slate, which also includes the recent Catherine Hardwicke-directed Mafia Mamma, starring Toni Collette and Monica Bellucci; Laurel Parmet’s feature directorial debut The Starling Girl, which is currently in theaters; Alice Troughton’s The Lesson, releasing theatrically on July 7; and Guy Nattiv’s Golda, starring Helen Mirren and set for an Aug. 25 theatrical release. Additional Bleecker Street movies include Marc Turtletaub’s sci-fi comedy Jules with Ben Kingsley, in theaters Aug. 11, and Meg Ryan’s first feature film in eight years, What Happens Later.