Focus Features said Friday that it will release its thriller Stillwater, directed by Spotlight Oscar winner Tom McCarthy and starring Matt Damon, in domestic theaters on July 30, 2021.
The pic, from Participant and DreamWorks, centers on an American oil-rig roughneck (Damon) from Oklahoma who travels to Marseille to visit his estranged daughter (Abigail Breslin), who is in prison for a murder she claims she did not commit. Confronted with language barriers, cultural differences and a complicated legal system, he makes it his personal mission to exonerate her. Camille Cottin also stars.
The screenplay is from McCarthy & Marcus Hinchey and Thomas Bidegain & Noé Debré. The late Steve Golin is a producer along with McCarthy, Jonathan King and Liza Chasin.
Focus had originally lined up the film for a November 2020 platform release before the pandemic shelved exhibition. Now things are ramping up again: So far on that date is Disney’s re-routed Jungle Cruise with Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt and David Lowery’s The Green Knight from A24.
The move comes after Focus dated its Edgar Wright documentary The Sparks Brothers for June 18. The Universal specialty label also has lined up Ben Sharrock’s Limbo for April 30 and Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast for November 12.