The Toronto International Film Festival will premiere James Franco’s comedy-drama “The Disaster Artist” as part of its Midnight Madness section of genre titles.
“The Disaster Artist” screened in March as a work in progress at South by Southwest, where it received a standing ovation. Critics were impressed with Franco’s performance as Tommy Wiseau in the film about the making of Wiseau’s 2003 so-bad-that-it’s-good film “The Room.” A24 and New Line have given the film an awards-season Dec. 1 release.
The 10-film Midnight Madness section also includes “Brawl in Cell Block 99,” starring Vince Vaughn and Jennifer Carpenter; the world premiere of Brian Taylor’s “Mom and Dad,” starring Nicolas Cage and Selma Blair; Seth Smith’s “The Crescent”; Ryuhei Kitamura’s action thriller “Downrange”; and U.K. director David Bruckner’s “The Ritual,” with Rafe Spall and Robert James-Collier.
Midnight Madness is also showing Robin Comisar’s “Great Choice” and Coralie Fargeat’s “Revenge.” The section will open with Joseph Kahn’s world premiere of “Bodied” and close with Soichi Umezawa’s “Vampire Clay,” about a demon terrorizing an art school.
The festival, which runs from Sept. 7 to 17, also unveiled its documentary titles with Morgan Spurlock’s sequel to his signature Oscar-nominated fast food film with “Super Size Me 2: Holy Chicken!” as he opens his own fast food restaurant. The section will open with Sophie Fiennes’ “Grace Jones: Bloodlight and Bami.”
The documentaries include Netflix’s “One of Us” by “Jesus Camp” co-directors Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady about New York City’s Hasidic Jewish community; Brett Morgen’s “Jane,” a portrait of Jane Goodall; and Greg Barker’s “The Final Year,” centered on U.S. foreign policy in U.S. president Barack Obama’s final year in office.
Other titles include Sara Driver’s “Boom for Real: The Late Teenage Years of Jean-Michel Basquiat”; Kate Novack’s “The Gospel According to Andre,” focused on fashion editor Andre Leon Talley; Sam Pollard’s “Sammy Davis Jr.: I’ve Gotta Be Me”; Matt Tymauer’s “Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood”; and Jed Rothstein’s “The China Hustle,” an investigation into Wall Street fraud with Alex Gibney and Frank Marshall exec producing.
Lili Fini Zanuck’s “Eric Clapton: Life in 12 Bars” will screen in the section along with Chris Smith’s “Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond – the Story of Jim Carrey & Andy Kaufman Featuring a Very Special, Contractually Obligated mention of Tony Clifton.” The closing night film will be “Makala,” which won the Grand Jury prize at Cannes’ Critics Week.