IFC Picks Up Ben Wheatley’s Sightseers; Film4 Backs Wheatley’s Freakshift As He Plans English Civil War Film

Ever since the film hit theaters, one horror film in particular has been tossed out as yet another possible IFC entrant into the Criterion Collection. As we anxiously await a Blu-ray for Ben Wheatley’s masterful Kill List, the lack of one nearly four months out from its theatrical debut (and over a year after the film debuted at 2011’s SXSW Film Festival) is telling. And apparently IFC loves Mr. Wheatley more than we ever knew.

Coming out of Cannes, IFC has nabbed the rights to Wheatley’s new film, Sightseers. Following the story of a young couple touring the UK countryside only to find themselves in various stages of trouble, this comes as news of Film4 also re-teaming with the director to back his next film, Freakshift. The Kill List and Sightseers backers will co-finance the film, which is basically all that we know other than that it’s an adventure/sci-fi feature.

Finally, The Observer reports that he’s currently set to work on ‘an improvised English Civil War drama.’ Hell yeah. As a huge fan of Wheatley, I’d love to not only see what he has in store with these films, but I’d love to see what Criterion could do with a Kill List Blu-ray. They have Weekend coming in a few months, so they do appear willing to mine the IFC partnership, and an October release could be killer for this type of films. Criterion heads would flip for this brooding and aggressive little film, and it would fit right at home with that bright ‘C’ in the corner.

Source Screen Daily / Screen Daily / The Observer / The Playlist