Arthouse streamer and distributor Mubi has snatched up all U.S. rights, as well as exclusive global SVOD rights, to Grand Theft Hamlet, Pinny Grylls and Sam Crane’s award-winning documentary mash-up of Shakespeare’s Hamlet and ultra-violent video game Grand Theft Auto.
The doc follows two unemployed actors during the 2021 COVID lockdown who attempt to state Hamlet entirely within the GTA virtual game world. Grand Theft Hamlet premiered at SXSW this year, where it won the documentary feature jury award. It also won The Hollywood Reporter critic Leslie Felperin, who called the experimental film “innovative, highly amusing and often touching.”
The film will have its U.K. premiere at the BFI London Film Festival on October 15, followed by a special presentation at BFI IMAX on October 20. Mubi plans to release Grand Theft Hamlet in early 2025, with further details to be announced soon. Grand Theft Hamlet was financed by BFI Doc Society, Park Pictures, Altitude, and Spark Features. Altitude Film Sales are handling world sales on the doc and negotiated the deal with Mubi.
The acquisition is the latest in an arthouse buying spree for Mubi which is expanding on its core streaming business with a robust theatrical slate in multiple territories. The group recently tested the domestic waters with the bow of Coralie Fargeat’s body horror drama The Substance, starring Demi Moore, which went out on nearly 2,000 screens in the U.S. and has grossed close to $10 million to date.
Mubi recently signed multi-territory deals for two buzzy titles out of the Venice Film Festival, snatching up rights to Luca Guadagnino‘s Daniel Craig-starrer Queer, across several international territories, including the U.K., Canada, Germany, Spain and India; and taking Alex Ross Perry’s music documentary Pavements, a portrait of the influential ’90s indie band, in all rights deals for the U.K, Germany, France and Canada among others.
Other recent acquisitions include Andrea Arnold’s Bird and Magnus von Horn’s The Girl With the Needle, both Cannes titles.
