Buyers are hot for The Substance.
The Demi Moore body horror film from director Coralie Fargeat, one of the buzziest films in this year’s Cannes competition, has all but sold out worldwide following its rapturous reception at last week’s world premiere.
The Match Factory, which is handling world sales on the movie, closed deals in Cannes for Italy (I Wonder Pictures), Spain (Elastica Films), Scandinavia (Nonstop Entertainment), South Korea (Challan), Hong Kong (Golden Scene Company), CIS (VLG.FILM LTD.), Ukraine and Baltics (Adastra Cinema), Taiwan (Catchplay), Australia and New Zealand (Madman Entertainment), Poland (Monolith), Greece (Feelgood Entertainment), Former Yugoslavia (MCF Megacom), Bulgaria (Beta Film) and Romania (Independenta Film 97). Metropolitan has previously acquired the film for distribution in France.
Match Factory’s parent company Mubi holds all rights for The Substance in North America, the UK, Ireland, Germany, Austria, Latin America, and Benelux, and is planning a theatrical rollout later this year. Mubi also picked up rights for the film for Turkey and India. Match Factor said it has finalized a deal for Japan for the film with negotiations underway in for Switzerland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Portugal and South East Asia.
Demi Moore stars in The Substance as a one-time famous actress rejected from her job by her sleazy boss, played by Dennis Quaid, for a younger star (Margaret Qualley). What starts as a social satire soon slips deep into gory horror territory, as Moore’s character takes bloody revenge on the system that rejected her and her aging body, only to find out she is also at war with herself. At the press conference for the film, Fargeat said the film’s extreme violence was a metaphor for the violence society inflicts on women, and women on themselves, to meet unrealistic beauty standards.
