boots riley signs film deal with annapurna pictures

Fresh off of last year’s sleeper hit Sorry To Bother You, writer/director/musician Boots Riley has signed a deal for a follow-up with Annapurna Pictures! According to The Wrap, both parties agreed to a blind script deal for his next feature-length project. While no details have been released at this time, news of the collaboration is pretty promising on its own. Annapurna Pictures has built a record of producing powerful cinema that dares to break from the mainstream storytelling trends, like If Beale Street Could Talk, Detroit, and Phantom Thread.

Recently, Riley opened up about what media perceived as snubs by the Academy Awards, explaining to fans and folks that he hadn’t actually run any “For Your Consideration” campaigns because that wasn’t the point of the movie.

“There are tons of ppl [sic] making statements this morning about what Sorry to Bother You not getting nominated says about the Academy and the film industry that I think are misconceptions that may affect what kinds of movies filmmakers think are possible to get made,” he wrote on Twitter.

“The largest factor as to why we didn’t get nominated is that we didn’t actually run a campaign that aimed to get a nomination for Screenplay or Song,” he continued. “We didn’t buy For Your Consideration ads in the trade magazines and we didn’t service the whole academy with screeners […] Not doing that made it a self-fulfilling prophecy that we wouldn’t get nominated. So I had no actual belief that we would get nominated.”

There’s a small statement in here that announces my deal for my next film with Annapurna.https://t.co/lpQLAqEi40

— Boots Riley (@BootsRiley) January 24, 2019

It’s almost like awards shouldn’t drive why we make art in the first place.