Jude Law’s thriller The Order, which opens in the US next week, has not been an easy sell amid the current Trump zeitgeist.
The Justin Kurzel-directed film, in which Law plays an FBI agent fighting white supremacist terrorists in Idaho in the 1980s, is emblematic of how fearful American gun buyers are in general right now. Especially when it comes to politically sensitive foods.
“When we got to sell the film (before its release in Venice), there were some distributors who were ostensibly nervous because its subject matter was so divisive from a red state/blue state perspective,” Stuart Ford, producer of “The Order,” said Saturday. On the sidelines of the Marrakesh Film Festival in Morocco, where the thriller was the opening act and was warmly received.
“We think this was an overly cautious way of looking at the film. But that was a deciding factor,” added Ford, who heads prominent independent content company AGC Studios.
Based on true events, The Order is set in 1983 in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. Law gives a powerful performance as a lone FBI agent who, after a series of increasingly violent bank robberies and car thefts, realizes they are the work of a group of dangerous neo-Nazi white supremacist domestic terrorists. They are inspired by real-life radical leader Robert Jay Matthews, played by Nicholas Hoult, and plan a war against the United States government.
Ford said there was “no question” that it “fits into the Trumpian zeitgeist.” “Unfortunately, the importance of the film speaks for itself,” he noted.
“We discussed a lot – before we sold the US distribution rights, and then, when we had a US distribution partner – about: ‘Should we release the film before the election or after the election?’” the producer revealed.
“In the end we decided to go ahead with whatever made the most sense for the movie, from a competitive perspective, because the reality of the movie was no longer more or less relevant because of what had come before,” Ford went on to point out.
Vertical will give The Order a US platform release on 600-700 screens starting December 6, while Amazon, which holds most international rights, will release the film in the UK on December 27.
Does Ford think ‘it’ will ruffle feathers in the US? “No, because I don’t think there are any more feathers left to ruffle,” he said, after all the post-election hype. He also noted that “the film is great, both as an old-school crime thriller and as a polemical piece, if you will.” “We have all the ingredients for a strong year-end release in standalone style,” Ford added.
Meanwhile, in another sign of how tough the independent film market is in the US right now, regardless of any political connotations the films may have, another AGC-produced Jude Law-starring film, Ron Howard’s Eden, does not… It remains undistributed, although Ford said he has high hopes the Eden deal will be completed soon.
