Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist has left an incredible impression on audiences since making the festival rounds at Venice and the Toronto Film Festival. The Brutalist is a 3-and-a-half-hour drama shot on 70mm that was amazingly made for under $10 million. The Brutalist became a sensation at this year’s Venice Film Festival, garnering a 12-minute standing ovation and winning the Silver Lion.
A24 would be the studio to pick up the film for distribution and the illustrious company is teasing the release of the trailer tomorrow along with revealing the new poster for the film. Via their social media, A24 simply posted the new one-sheet with the caption, “Welcome to America. Trailer tomorrow for Brady Corbet’s THE BRUTALIST.”
Corbet would explain how he made this film with such a budget at a recent CAA screening. He made sure to note, “We’re not reinventing the wheel. The reality is that we would have been happier and more comfortable if we had more money.” He expounded, “It came at a great personal, physical expense at times because the number of sleepless nights in the last seven years. You have to have blind faith for getting this thing which is completely malnourished across the finish line.” One of Corbet’s advantages was to use the benefits of tax credits when shooting the film in Hungary.
He added, “We were shooting in a country where things would cost what they really should cost. Hungary is not that cheap where we shot. It’s cheaper than New York City where we spent $1M in transpo on the last movie. We want to be in control of how sand is moved around in the box. We think money is frequently misspent; a reality that all of us exist in. I don’t think I’m overstepping by saying that. But also to make this movie for this amount of money meant that it was a real sacrifice from our HODs (heads of departments).”
Our own Chris Bumbray loved the film, saying in his review, “Corbet, who wrote the movie with his partner Mona Fastvold (an accomplished filmmaker in her own right), does an excellent job crafting an allegorical tale that can be applied to anyone who’s ever struggled to overcome personal trauma by creating meaningful work. Technically, this is impeccable, with cinematography by Lol Crawley that makes the most of the 70mm format and the locations filmed in Budapest, Italy and more. Truly, this is a sprawling work.”