“Origin” becomes the highest-rated film of all time for Neon and Ava DuVernay

EXCLUSIVE: We hear it from sources Origin, Oscar-nominated filmmaker Ava DuVernay’s new film is not only the highest-rated film of her career, but also for Neon, the film’s distributor.

Origin achieved a positive overall score of 91 in the top 2 with an absolute recommendation of 81 in the audience tests, surpassed the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival and became the winner of the Oscar for best film of 2020. Parasite, which achieved a total of 91 positive and 73 final recommendations, as well as the studio’s other Oscar winner, I, Tonya, which received an overall positive rating of 88 and a final recommendation of 68.

We understand that the focus groups that follow a Origin Audience members at the test screening were emotionally reduced to tears, moved by what they had just seen, and engaged in intense conversations with other moviegoers about the film’s social issues. The film will be released in LA and NYC on December 8 before opening on January 19.

Neon has acquired worldwide rights Origin before its premiere at the Venice Film Festival, where it received an eight-minute standing ovation. After its premiere, the film received a certified freshness rating of 85% on Rotten Tomatoes. Of Origin, DuVernay was the first black American woman to be selected at the Venice Film Festival.

Origin is based on the 2020 bestseller by Isabel Wilkerson Caste: the origin of our discontent and follows the Pulitzer Prize winner’s creative and personal journey across continents through grief, revelation and the evils of historical stratification. King Richard Oscar nominee Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor plays Wilkerson. The film has strong and powerful connections to contemporary political realities at home and abroad, from antiquity to India’s Dalit caste (once called the untouchables) to slavery in America and the racial segregation and violence of Jim Crow laws as well as the systematic persecution of people by the Nazis. Jews and the horrors of the Holocaust.

Oscar-nominated DuVernay told Deadline’s Dominic Patten in an interview: “The purpose of OriginThe essence of this work is to stop for a moment, realize what is going on, how close we are to it, and begin to challenge our vocabulary. To challenge what we think we know, to find out what our shapes and symbols are and what they mean. To challenge this stupid behavior we find ourselves in. This state where we accept everything, where we accept that it’s all racism and that’s just the way it is. No, really start the questioning.”

She added: “The response I expect is a challenge and I hope there is also some understanding.”

The film also stars Jon Bernthal, Niecy Nash-Betts, Vera Farmiga, Audra McDonald, Nick Offerman, Blair Underwood, Finn Wittrock, Jasmine Cephas-Jones and Connie Nielsen.

DuVernay received an Oscar nomination in the documentary category in 2017 13. The Netflix film delved deeper into the prison system in the United States and revealed the history of racial inequality in the country. DuVernay’s film Selma about the epic march of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. From Selma to Montgomery, AL won an original song Oscar for “Glory” by Common and John Legend. DuVernay’s Disney film A wrinkle in time With more than $132 million, WW is the second highest ever for a black American filmmaker, behind Nia DaCosta The wonders ($161 million ww).