NEON, the award-winning studio behind some of the most daring and celebrated films of the last nine years, announced today it has acquired U.S. rights to “King Snake,” from Loving and Mud filmmaker Jeff Nichols. FilmNation Entertainment is the studio fully financing the film and handling worldwide sales. The film, starring Margaret Qualley (“The Substance”), Michael Shannon (“Take Shelter”), and Drew Starkey (“Queer”), will be produced by Nichols and his Tri-State Pictures partners Brian Kavanaugh-Jones and Sarah Green, in association with Range Media Partners. FilmNation’s Stacey Snider and Glen Basner Executive Produce.
The deal was negotiated by NEON and FilmNation Entertainment in cooperation with Range Media Partners on behalf of the filmmakers. NEON will release the film theatrically in the US nationwide. Principal photography started this month in Arkansas.
A Southern gothic horror, “King Snake” follows a young couple (Qualley and Starkey) who inherit an Arkansas farm where they face real-world problems and supernatural forces, battling physical and metaphysical demons while confronting the property’s dark legacy.
The news comes just ahead of Cannes, where NEON will arrive with an ambitious slate. NEON’s films in competition include James Gray’s “Paper Tiger,” Arthur Harari’s “The Unknown,” Cristian Mungiu’s “Fjord,” Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s “All of a Sudden,” Hirokazu Koreeda’s “Sheep in the Box,” and Na Hong-Jin’s “Hope.” In Directors’ Fortnight: Arie Esiri & Chuko Esiri’s “Clarissa,” a modern reimagining of Virginia Woolf’s “Mrs. Dalloway,” and David Greaves’ Sundance sensation “Once Upon a Time in Harlem.” Rounding out the slate, Nicolas Winding Refn’s “Her Private Hell” screens out of competition.
Earlier this year, the studio received recognition at the 98th Academy Awards, including Best Picture nods for Sentimental Value and The Secret Agent (with the former ultimately winning Best International Feature Film) – recent milestones including the record-breaking IMAX opening of “EPiC: Elvis Presley In Concert” and Park Chan-wook’s “No Other Choice” crossing $10 million domestically. Looking ahead, the distributor will release Damian McCarthy’s “Hokum” on May 1 and Boots Riley’s “I Love Boosters” on May 22.
About NEON
In only nine years, NEON has garnered 57 Academy Award nominations, winning Best Picture for Sean Baker’s “Anora” and Bong Joon Ho’s “Parasite.” This year, NEON received 18 Oscar nominations, the second most for any motion picture studio behind Warner Bros. Joachim Trier’s “Sentimental Value” and Kleber Mendonca Filho’s “The Secret Agent” were both nominated for best picture, with Sentimental Value ultimately winning the award for Best International Film – bringing the studio’s total to 11 wins.
NEON continues to champion bold, risk-taking cinema and has built an impressive streak winning the coveted Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, with six consecutive wins, including this most recent year’s winner “It Was Just an Accident,” as well as “Anora,” “Parasite,” “Anatomy of a Fall,” “Titane,” and “Triangle of Sadness.” In 2024, NEON was named The Hollywood Reporter’s Independent Studio of the Year and received the Clio Award for Studio of the Year.
As a burgeoning leader in the production space, NEON’s recent and upcoming in-house productions include Boots Riley feature “I Love Boosters” which premiered to rave reviews in SXSW and will be released in May, and David Robert Mitchell’s “They Follow.”
NEON has grossed over half-a-billion at the box office, highlights include Osgood Perkins’ Longlegs, which was the highest grossing independent film of 2024 at $75 million domestically, and his follow-up feature The Monkey, NEON’s second highest opening. The studio is currently in post on its fourth Perkins film, “The Young People.” Their upcoming slate includes notable auteurs such as Chloe Domont, Cristian Mungiu, Hirokazu Kore-eda, Chloe Okuno, Takashi Miike. NEON’s recent releases include “Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie” and Baz Luhrmann’s “EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert.” Up next: Steven Soderbergh’s “The Christophers”; “Hokum” starring Adam Scott; Alex Ullom’s “It Ends”; and Sundance hit “Leviticus.”
NEON’s library spans more than 140 films, including Academy Award nominees “Sirat,” “Arco,” “Perfect Days,” “Robot Dreams,” “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed,” “Moonage Daydream,” and “Flee,” which made history becoming the first film to score an impressive trifecta of Oscar nominations; double Oscar nominee “The Worst Person in The World,” “Portrait of a Lady on Fire” and triple Oscar nominee and winner “I, Tonya.”