The best time-travel movie you haven’t seen yet is coming in early 2024. io9 can confirm that the North American rights to River, Junta Yamaguchi’s follow-up to the 2021 hit Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes, have been picked up by Cineverse with the aim to release the film on its streaming service AsianCrush in early 2024.
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“After its stellar festival run, we’re thrilled to bring Junta Yamaguchi’s wonderfully cozy sci-fi film to our passionate community of Asian film fans,” Katie Cannon, director at Cineverse Networks, said in a press release. “The infectious, genre-bending energy of this film has the power to break through cultural barriers and appeal to audiences of every taste.”
River is set in the small Japanese village of Kibune where employees of the cozy Fujiya Inn realize they are stuck in a time loop. But it’s not just them. It’s the guests. And the people across the street. And people down the block. Plus, every time time loops back, everyone remembers what happened, and so the film becomes simultaneously a hilarious comedy and a sci-fi mystery. Our review likened it to Groundhog Day if every character was Bill Murray. Here’s the trailer.
“I’m delighted that my film, River, has found a home in North America from AsianCrush and Cineverse,” Junta Yamaguchi said. “AsianCrush’s audience has great taste and I hope they enjoy my offbeat time loop comedy fantasy.”
In addition to Fantastic Fest, River debuted at the Neuchâtel International Fantastic Film Festival in Switzerland and also screened at the Sitges Film Festival as well. Third Window Films helped make the deal with Cineverse.
“Third Window Films are happy to once again work with Cineverse on another of our unique and standout Japanese films,” Adam Torel of Third Window Films said. “[Yamaguchi’s previous film] Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes was a resounding success worldwide and I’m sure Cineverse will enable Yamaguchi’s latest time-twisting adventure to reach an even larger audience!”
If you love time travel films, sci-fi comedy, or any percentage of both, we can’t recommend River enough. It’s a fantastic movie and we are so excited U.S. audiences will soon get the chance to see it.
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