Arrow Films has acquired U.K. rights to the black metal movie “Lords of Chaos” ahead of its British premiere at the London Film Festival next week. Gunpowder & Sky did the U.K. deal and has also now set a first-quarter 2019 U.S. release for the picture, which launched to acclaim at the Sundance Festival this year.
Jonas Åkerlund’s movie is centered on Norway’s brutal black metal scene in the 1990s and the band Mayhem. A sequence of events leads to church burnings, suicide and murder. Swedish film and music-video director Åkerlund helmed the film and wrote the screenplay. It is based on the book of the same name by Michael Moynihan and Didrik Søderlind.
The movie stars Rory Culkin, Emory Cohen, Jack Kilmer and Sky Ferreira, alongside Valter Skarsgård and Jon Øigarden. The film went down well at Sundance: “Hail Åkerlund!,” Variety said in its review. “The Swedish director has made a pitch-perfect black metal dramedy about real-life head-bangers who lost their minds.”
“We were knocked out by this raw and powerful film which we cannot wait to bring to audiences in the U.K.,” said Arrow’s director of content and distribution Francesco Simeoni. “With its deft handling of the true events and the fabrications required to adapt a work into another medium Jonas Åkerlund has created something that will please both fans and newbies and we look forward to converting the masses to Norwegian Black Metal.”
“Lords of Chaos” is the latest music-related release from Gunpowder & Sky, which recently acquired punk rock picture “Her Smell,” and also has Nick Offerman starrer “Hearts Beat Loud.” Speaking about the U.K. deal, David Betesh, global sales manager, said: “We couldn’t be happier that, in the U.K. market, ‘Lords of Chaos’ is going to be championed by the great team at Arrow.”
The film was produced by Twentieth Century Fox, Vice Films, Scott Free Productions, and Eleven Arts Production.