NEON, the award-winning studio behind some of the most daring and celebrated films, announced today it has snapped up U.S., U.K., and Australian rights to Hirokazu Kore-eda’s “Sheep in the Box.” The film, which was also written by Kore-eda, stars Haruka Ayase, who previously appeared in Kore-eda’s drama “Our Little Sister,” and “Daigo,” who is marking his feature debut. NEON will release the film theatrically in the US nationwide.
With filming currently underway, producers include Fuji Television Network, Gaga Corporation, Toho, and AOI Pro. Gaga represents international sales together with Goodfellas and negotiated the deal with NEON’s Sarah Colvin.
“Sheep In The Box” is set in the near future, where a couple takes in a state-of-the-art humanoid into their home as their son. The title of the film was inspired by the French children’s novel “The Little Prince.”
This deal reunites NEON and Kore-eda, one of the most lauded filmmakers in the world, as the company previously distributed “Broker,” which at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival won the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury and Best Actor for Song Kang-Ho. Kore-eda’s work also includes the 2018 Palme d’Or winner and Academy Award–nominated film “Shoplifters,” and other acclaimed features which earned awards at Cannes Film Festivals including Like “Father, Like Son,” which was awarded the Jury Prize, “Monster,” which won Best Screenplay and Queer Palm, and “Nobody Knows,” in which Yûya Yagira was awarded Best Actor.
NEON recently acquired rights to Baz Luhrmann’s “EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert” and Steven Soderbergh’s “The Christophers,” both of which will be released in 2026. Other upcoming releases include Osgood Perkins’ “Keeper,” releasing November 14, and Ugo Bienvenu’s award-winning “Arco” with Natalie Portman, Genki Kawamura’s “Exit 8,” with recent releases including Joachim Trier’s Grand-Prix winner, “Sentimental Value,” Jafar Panahi’s Palme d’Or winner “It Was Just An Accident,” Raoul Peck’s Orwell: 2+2=5, Splitsville starring Dakota Johnson and Adria Arjona, and Sundance breakout film “Together” starring Alison Brie and Dave Franco
Five NEON films have been selected by their home countries as official selections for the Best International Feature Film category at the 98th Academy Awards. In addition to “Sentimental Value,” this includes, Jafar Panahi’s Palme d’Or winner, “It Was Just An Accident,” which was released Oct. 15; Kleber Mendonça Filho’s Cannes prize winner, “The Secret Agent” releasing Nov. 26; Park Chan-wook’s “No Other Choice” releasing Dec. 25; and Oliver Laxe’s “Sirât.”
About NEON
In only nine years, NEON has garnered 39 Academy Award nominations (7 this year), 11 total wins (5 this year), including two Best Picture wins, and has grossed over $400M at the box office. The company continues to push boundaries and take creative risks on bold cinema such as Sean Baker’s “Anora,” which recently took home five Academy Awards including Best Picture, and was released in theaters to the highest per-screen average of 2024; as well as Bong Joon Ho’s “Parasite,” which made history winning four Academy Awards, becoming the first non-English-language film to claim Best Picture, and grossed over $54M at the domestic box office.
NEON 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” from Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi, 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.
Recent NEON releases include Mike Flanagan’s “The Life of Chuck” and Osgood Perkins’ horror film “The Monkey,” both of which are based on the short stories by Stephen King. “The Monkey” marked NEON’s second biggest opening weekend at the box office following Perkins’ “Longlegs,” which is the highest grossing independent film of the year at $75 million domestically.
As a burgeoning leader in the production space, NEON’s recent and upcoming in-house productions include: David Robert Mitchell’s “They Follow” starring Maika Monroe; Michael Covino’s “Splitsville” starring Dakota Johnson and Adria Arjona; the highly anticipated Boots Riley feature “I Love Boosters” starring Keke Palmer, Naomi Ackie, LaKeith Stanfield, Demi Moore, and Eiza González; “The Wrong Girls” starring Kristen Stewart and Alia Shawkat; Tilman Singer’s “Cuckoo” starring Hunter Schafer; and Brandon Cronenberg’s “Infinity Pool”. NEON’s international sales outfit handles the company’s in-house titles as well as third party projects.
NEON has amassed a library of over 120 films, with a noteworthy selection of Academy Award nominated films including: Mohammad Rasoulof’s “The Seed of the Sacred Fig;” Wim Wenders’ “Perfect Days;” “Robot Dreams” from Pablo Bergfeer; documentaries “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed,” “Fire of Love,” “Moonage Daydream,” and “Flee,” which made history becoming the first film to score an impressive trifecta of Oscar nominations; Joachim Trier’s “The Worst Person in The World;” and Craig Gillespie’s I, “Tonya”.