Steve McQueen Thriller ‘Widows’ Opens London Film Festival
Steve McQueen‘s contemporary Chicago thriller “Widows” (November 16, Fox), starring Viola Davis, will open the 62nd BFI London Film Festival. The international premiere will take place on Wednesday October 10 at the Cineworld, Leicester Square, after its stateside fall film festival debut, likely Telluride or New York.
Adapted by McQueen and novelist-screenwriter Gillian Flynn (“Gone Girl”) from Lynda La Plante’s 80s UK television thriller, “Widows” is about a group of women who share a debt left behind by their dead criminal husbands. The film costars Michelle Rodriguez, Elizabeth Debicki, Cynthia Erivo, Colin Farrell, Daniel Kaluuya, and Jacki Weaver with Robert Duvall and Liam Neeson.
“This is scintillatingly rich storytelling from a magnificent filmmaker,” stated BFI London Film Festival Artistic Director Tricia Tuttle, “probing issues around race, class and gender, while always delivering immense style and crackingly sharp thrills.”
From Twentieth Century Fox, Regency Enterprises and See-Saw Films in association with Film4, “Widows” is produced by McQueen with Iain Canning, Emile Sherman and Arnon Milchan. It will open in cinemas across the UK and Ireland on November 9 and hits North America on November 16.
UK artist McQueen launched his film career with three Michael Fassbender films: “Hunger,” followed by sex addict drama “Shame,” and Best Picture Oscar-winner “12 Years a Slave.” “Widows” marks his biggest-budget studio film to date. Oscar perennial Viola Davis has been nominated for three Academy Awards, winning the supporting Actress Oscar for “Fences.”
