WB shopping Ryan Gosling’s critically panned Lost River to new distributors

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

Ryan Gosling‘s directorial career has taken some punches right out of the gate. His debut feature, LOST RIVER, premiered at the Cannes Film Festival the other day to a wide mix of cheers and boos. But, it seems the boos won out as Warner Bros. is now looking for a smaller company to acquire the film. Deadline reports that nothing is finalized at this point, but it doesn’t look good for LOST RIVER.

Previously titled HOW TO CATCH A MONSTER, Gosling’s debut pretty much delivered what we expected based on the critical responses. Mimicking the works of directors he has worked with to date, specifically Nicholas Winding Refn, Gosling’s film supposedly feels like it was directed by a rookie. Not exactly the type of movie that would have ever gotten a wide release, LOST RIVER is certainly not going to get the same type of exposure with a smaller company but may get more attention than a big studio like Warner Bros is willing to give.

Ryan Gosling is far from the first actor to pursue directing and definitely not the first to stumble out of the gate. Maybe as fans we have been spoiled by the success in recent years of George Clooney, Ben Affleck, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt as each has proven to be adept on both sides of the camera. There is still time for Gosling to fine tune his project before general audiences see LOST RIVER, but the outlook is not so good.