Utopia has acquired U.S. rights to acclaimed director Alex Ross Perry’s (“Her Smell,” “Listen Up Philip”) “Pavements,” the day after its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival.
The film debuted to strong reviews, with Variety saying “’Pavements’ dazzles as a spinning plates act,” and Screen describing it as “a joyous, slyly subversive celebration.”
A boundary-breaking look at the seminal band Pavement, the film is edited and produced by filmmaker Robert Greene (“Kate Plays Christine,” “Procession”) and will have its North American premiere at the New York Film Festival later this fall.
An examination of the iconic 90s indie band, “Pavements” appears to be just another music documentary, until it doesn’t. A “prismatic, narrative, scripted, documentary, musical, metatextual hybrid,” the film intimately shows the band preparing for their sold-out 2022 reunion tour while simultaneously tracking the preparations for a musical based on their songs, a museum devoted to their history and a big-budget Hollywood biopic inspired by their saga as one of the most important bands of a generation.
The film’s scripted scenes include Joe Keery, Nat Wolff, Fred Hechinger, Logan Miller, Griffin Newman, Tim Heidecker and Jason Schwartzman. The musical within the film includes Michael Esper, Zoe Lister-Jones and Kathryn Gallagher.
Utopia’s Kyle Greenberg said: “One of our favorite filmmakers, one of our favorite bands… ‘Pavements’ joining Utopia is simply a dream come true. The band’s iconic status has only continued to blossom out of the 90s and Alex has crafted a film that transcends documentary and questions what the format can be in a surprising and novel way. ‘Pavements’ is a rare, rocking and star-studded monument to a band that defies classification and continues to harness our hopes.”
The film was produced by Perry, Robert Greene, Peter Kline, Danny Gabai, Craig Butta, Lance Bangs, Alex Needles, Arrow Kruse, Chris Lombardi, Gerard Cosloy, Patrick Amory and Gabe Spierer; executive producers are Ian Montone, Rick Yorn, Harper Simon, Dave Ayers, Sara Lord, Merck Mercuriadis, Betsy Hershey, Michael Karbelnikoff, Robert Schwartzman, Cole Harper, Jonny Gordon, David Ruttenberg, Stu Goldstein, Alice Rhodes and Nick Quested.
Production companies are Alldayeverday, Pulse Films, Matador Records, Field Recordings, Hypgnosis, WW7 Entertainment, LBI Entertainment, Monotone Inc. and Goldcrest Post.
