Anchor Bay picks up Billy Bob Thornton's “Jayne Mansfield’s Car”

PanARMENIAN.Net - Anchor Bay Films has acquired North American and UK rights to Jayne Mansfield’s Car, the Billy Bob Thornton-directed film which makes its North American premiere on September 13 at Toronto. Thornton stars with Robert Duvall, John Hurt, Kevin Bacon, Katherine LaNasa, Ray Stevenson, and Robert Patrick. Thornton co-wrote it with Tom Epperson. Alexander Rodnyansky produced with Geyer Kosinski, Deadline said.

An ensemble drama about families and the effects of combat on the complicated relationships between fathers and sons, Jayne Mansfield’s Car looks at two colorful clans in 1969. Brought together by the death of a woman who was married, first to the Alabaman Jim Caldwell (Duvall) and then to the British Kingsley Bedford (Hurt), her families meet for the first time at the Caldwells’ home with uneasy curiosity. The result is a culture clash of the Sixties, and of the Old World versus the Old South.

“The movie reflects some of my own experiences, but its ideas seem universal to me,” Thornton said in a statement. “It examines our fascination with and fear of both life and death, how war is viewed by different generations, and how its effects manifest themselves in families who experience it. It takes place at the height of the Love Generation and the Vietnam War – a time it seems we still haven’t learned the lessons from.”

Sergei Bespalov, James D. Brubaker and Robert Teitel were the exec producers, and WME Global’s Graham Taylor and Aldamisa International’s Jere Hausfater brokered the deal with Anchor Bay’s Kevin Kasha.