Back in June, I was told that Steve McQueen’s “Blitz” had not been submitted to Venice. Telluride or Toronto. A notable festival director emailed me, “something weird is going on” with the film.
With “Blitz” skipping those important fall fests and opting to premiere at London/BFI instead — where no world premiere had ever gone on to be Best Picture nominated — struck many as a tad odd. It turns out, if you want to believe it, that this peculiar fall rollout was all McQueen’s idea.
Vanity Fair’s Little Gold Men podcast has a “credible source” saying that the decision to premiere at London was “Steve McQueen’s choice.” The filmmaker wanted to premiere his film, which tackles Londoners during WWII, in London. Fair enough.
On Sunday, it was reported that “Blitz” had finally found a distributor for its brief 3-week theatrical run, and it was Variance Films. Apple will be taking care of marketing, and Oscar campaigning for the film. Right after that London premiere, it’s set to screen at the New York Film Festival.
“Blitz” is a WWII epic starring Elliott Heffernan, Saoirse Ronan and Harris Dickinson —the story is based on an original idea by McQueen. It’s been described to me as a “hero’s journey” about a 9-year-old boy (Heffernan) trying to get back home to his mother (Ronan), while exploring Britain during WWII. The film is intercut with sequences of the mother searching for her son.
A trailer for “Blitz” was unveiled last week. It’s set to release in select cinemas on November 1 before going to Apple TV+ on November 22, just three weeks after its theatrical launch.