Has 'Hesher' Been Retitled 'Rebel'?

Update: A few sources (but not yet Newmarket) are saying this is just a name change for international distribution. Peter saw the poster above at Cannes, where it may have been used only for sales purposes. So don't take that image as final. Original article follows.

One of the more anticipated movies going into Sundance this year was Spencer Susser's Hesher, which casts Joseph Gordon-Levitt as "a long haired tattooed head-banging badass, who inserts himself " into the life of a young man who has recently lost his mother. The film didn't wow everyone at the fest, and was picked up by smaller distributor Newmarket. Now it seems the picture has a new title: the much less distinctive and interesting Rebel.

The Playlist noticed a poster bearing the new title at the Nu Image website. That's all the info we've got at this point, but the poster and associated page are definitely for the film that was Hesher — the poster even relies upon the primary still for the movie, as seen above. The page offers this synopsis:

Hesher (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) a 20 something loser, invades the life of an awkward 13 year old boy who lives with his pill-popping father and grandmother. When a supermarket worker (Natalie Portman) saves the kid from a bully, he falls in love with her.

Reviews out of Sundance were mixed, and Peter seemed to like it more than most:

At the core, the film is one of the most fucked up "traveling angel" stories I've ever seen on the big screen. TJ and his father are both devastated by the loss of TJ's mother...and this film is about their journey to acceptance. I lost my mother when I was young, and could definitely relate with the core of this film, it seems, more than most. But I expect that people who haven't experienced a parental death as a child, might have less to relate/connect with...This is a solid first independent film, and I can't wait to see how Susser grows as a storyteller.

This is the first new info we've seen on the film since the distro pickup after Sundance. We still don't know any release info, so stay tuned on that front.