Neil LaBute to write and direct Diane Kruger and Ray Nicholson in ‘Out of the Blue’ for Quiver

Quiver Distribution announced today that Neil LaBute (In the Company of Men, Your Friends & Neighbors, Nurse Betty) will write and direct Out of the Blue, which will star Diane Kruger (Inglourious Basterds, In the Fade, National Treasure) and Ray Nicholson (Promising Young Woman, The Benchwarmers, A Reunion).  Principal photography will begin this week in Rhode Island.

Berry Meyerowitz of Quiver Distribution and Tara L. Craig of The Squid Farm (Shook, Guest House) will produce.  Jeff Sackman and Larry Greenberg will executive produce for Quiver Distribution, which packaged the project and arranged the film’s financing with BondIt Media Capital.  Matthew Helderman, Luke Taylor, and Tyler Gould will executive produce for BondIt.  Quiver will handle worldwide distribution of the film and introduce it to international buyers at the upcoming Toronto Film Festival.  

Out of the Blue is a contemporary tale of passion, deceit, and violence. When Connor (Nicholson) meets enigmatic beauty Marilyn (Kruger), her seductive charm transforms his dull life into a thrilling fantasy world. He plunges headlong into the adulterous affair, the ex-con with a heart of gold seemingly destined for the raven-haired trophy wife. The only hitch in their idyllic new life together? Marilyn’s trapped in a nightmare with an abusive husband and vulnerable stepdaughter.

“Neil LaBute is one of the most ingenious and powerful contemporary filmmakers,” said Quiver Distribution Co-Presidents Berry Meyerowitz and Jeff Sackman. “It has been incredible to watch this project take form with the talents of Diane and Ray, and we are eager for filming to begin!”

Kruger can next be seen in Universal Pictures’ The 355, directed by Simon Kinberg and starring Jessica Chastain, Penélope Cruz and Lupita Nyong’o. Previous credits include lauded and box office hits such as Quentin Tarantino’s Academy Award Winning Inglourious Basterds and German film In The Fade, which earned her the Best Actress Award at Cannes.

Nicholson’s recent credits include Emerald Fennell’s Oscar nominated black comedy thriller Promising Young Woman starring Carey Mulligan and Amazon’s drama TV series “Panic.”

LaBute is a prolific American playwright, screenwriter, and director and best known for writing and directing the 1997 black comedy In the Company of Men. He went on to write and direct the successful films including Possession, The Shape of Things, Nurse Betty, Lakeview Terrace and Death at a Funeral. LaBute’s television credits include “Billy & Billie”; “Van Helsing;” “Hell on Wheels;” and “Billions.”

LaBute is represented by The Gersh Agency and ICM Partners.  Kruger is repped by UTA, UBBA, Untitled, Altitude and Peikoff Mahan.  Nicholson is represented by UTA and Sugar23, Viewpoint and Sloane, Offer, Weber, Dern.

Out of the Blue marks Quiver’s next foray into production – following Walter Hill’s Dead for a Dollar starring Christoph Waltz, Willem Dafoe, and Rachel Brosnahan, which they are currently producing and filming in New Mexico.

Photos: Ovidiu Hrubaru/Shutterstock; Aimee Rentmeester Flynn

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Erik Anderson

Erik Anderson is the founder/owner and Editor-in-Chief of AwardsWatch and has always loved all things Oscar, having watched the Academy Awards since he was in single digits; making lists, rankings and predictions throughout the show. This led him down the path to obsessing about awards. Much later, he found himself in film school and the film forums of GoldDerby, and then migrated over to the former Oscarwatch (now AwardsDaily), before breaking off to create AwardsWatch in 2013.

He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Hollywood Critics Association (HCA) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.

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