Richard Linklater introduced his Hit Man to the Venice Film Fsetival on Tuesday, world premiering the comedy thriller out of competitors to a six-minute ovation contained in the Sala Grande.
The crowd’s response to the pic was notably enthusiastic, with one scene specifically between star Glen Powell and co-star Adria Arjona inflicting the viewers to react in applause.
Hit Man is loosely primarily based on a real crime article Linklater got here throughout about 20 years in the past within the Texas Monthly about Gary Johnson, who had helped Houston police catch would-be criminals searching for a hitman’s companies.
In the New Orleans-set movie, this true story is the jumping-off level for an escalating affair between Johnson (Glen Powell) and a determined lady (Arjona) making an attempt to flee an abusive boyfriend as Johnson finds himself changing into considered one of his false personas, falling for the girl and flirting with turning right into a prison himself.
The solid together with Powell and Arjona weren’t in Venice owing to the SAG-AFTRA strike about which Linklater earlier within the day told the Venice press corps “I feel one thing’s gotta give.”
Speaking with Deadline’s Joe Utichi at the moment, Linklater said that whereas he’d mused on the story for years, it wasn’t till Powell — with whom he’d beforehand labored — referred to as him throughout the pandemic that it “actually began to turn out to be a factor.” The two co-wrote the script primarily based on Skip Hollandsworth’s article.
The story is partly “concerning the notion of self-identity,” Linklater instructed Deadline. “Gary turns into trapped by his personal selections in a approach. He’s trapped in an identification that he prefers. Doesn’t that really feel prefer it’s one thing that’s within the air proper now, that identification—the best way we determine—could be very unstable? It could be no matter you need it to be. Truth could be no matter. I don’t know if it’s the virtual-ness of our period, however we’re positively in one thing new. Politically, sexually… all the things’s type of up for grabs. This isn’t that particularly, nevertheless it’s the concept of that.”
Hit Man is on the market right here in Venice through AGC Studios and indications are {that a} deal for this accessible, hilarious and well-crafted larger-than-life story feels inevitable.
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