More Wackness: Mandy Lane Gets Dumped?
If you've been reading /Film for a while, than you know that I fell in love with Jonathan Levine's The Wackness at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. Levine made his feature directorial debut with a horror thriller titled All the Boys Love Mandy Lane. The film premiered at the 2006 Toronto Film Festival and was greeted with possitive buzz. James Rocchi said it was "the best modern slasher flick since Scream," and Scott Weinberg called it a "thinking man's slasher flick." The Weinstein Co's Dimension Films label was originally set to release the film in 2007. The lackluster performance of Grindhouse forced the studio to sell the film, among other horror movies, to Senator Entertainment. A release date was announced, and moved back. July 17th 2009 was to be the day that the film would hit theaters domestically. But not anymore.
Box Office Mojo is reporting that the film has been pulled from Senator Distribution's upcoming release schedule, and has been slapped with a TBD. The company had a massive critical and finacial failure with The Informers. The film cost an estiamted $18 million plus marketing, and only made $300,000 at the box office. Shock is reporting a rumor that the company may be closing their New York Office, and Mandy Lane is just one of the films that Senator has removed from their Summer slate. I've been waiting to see Mandy Lane ever since discovering The Wackness and it's begining to look like it may never happen. Or at least not on the big screen. Definitely not in a multi-plex. Levine is having a streak of bad luck. Sony Pictures Classics mismarked The Wackness, and Mandy Lane seems destined to a small DVD release. Below I've included the film's official plot synopsis and the movie trailer.
Sixteen-year-old Mandy Lane (Amber Heard) is an unattainable girl, everyone's object of desire. In an attempt to advance her position in the social pecking order, the gorgeous track star shuns her old friend Emmet, an awkward outsider. She's in with the cool kids now, and surely they don't want her hanging with the freak. Mandy's new 'friends' invite her out to a family ranch for the weekend and she agrees, seeing it as an excellent opportunity to cement her new friendships. Once at the ranch, all the boys start to make their moves – each one hoping to be the first to attain the unattainable Mandy Lane. As night falls and the booze, drugs, and hormones take over, things are said and advances made which can never be reversed. Suddenly, sweet Mandy finds herself pit in a brutal struggle for survival against someone whose interest she has rejected.