Christmas came early for Joe Swanberg, Magnolia Pictures, and Paramount Pictures. In the first announced deal of the Sundance Film Festival, which began Thursday, the two film companies agreed to co-distribute Happy Christmas, the holiday dramedy that stars Anna Kendrick, Melanie Lynskey, Mark Webber, Lena Dunham, and Swanberg, who also wrote and directed. Terms were not announced.
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Magnolia, which distributed Swanberg’s last movie, Drinking Buddies (also starring Kendrick), will distribute the film in theaters and via VOD. Paramount Home Media Distribution will distribute internationally and handle U.S. physical home entertainment. “Happy Christmas is a personal and important film for me and I can’t imagine better partners to help connect it with audiences around the world,” Swanberg said in a statement.
In the film, Kendrick plays a woman who crashes in her older brother’s basement after a recent breakup. She reconnects with a college friend (Dunham), and their antics shake up the household and provoke her more responsible sister-in-law (Lynskey), whose own life, it turns out, isn’t everything she had planned.
Magnolia is eyeing a theatrical release in the summer 2014. Drinking Buddies opened last July 25.
