Margaret gets a Poster and a Trailer!

Hit the jump for the Trailer...

Kenneth Lonergan's long delayed film 'Margaret' is finally coming to theaters on September 30th!

Here's the story from The Playlist:

Ten years after the tragic events of 9/11, that also serves as the backdrop to the film, Kenneth Lonergan‘s long-awaited and forever delayed “Margaret” will finally hit theaters on September 30th, according to Exhibitor Relations.

The journey for the film has been a long and difficult one, but here’s what you need to know. Filming had actually wrapped way back in 2005 but for a variety of reasons, completing the film became a nightmare. Foremost, a legal battle erupted, with suits and countersuits filed, as Lonergan simply could not find the picture in the editing bay. Lonergan apparently requested further time in the editing room, while multiple editors apparently also took control of the film at various points both with and without Lonergan’s ok. Even late producer Sydney Pollack became infuriated with Lonergan’s “unprofessional and irrational behavior.” At one point, it was rumored that 300 pages of script were shot—so no wonder he had trouble wrangling this thing into a manageable size—but the sticking point became the length of the film: Lonergan’s cut ran about three hours, but his contract with Fox Searchlight stated he needed to bring it in at two hours.

We figured the film to be lost to the sands of time, but a ray of light appeared this spring when producer Gary Gilbert said he hoped to get the film into theaters by the end of the year. The project took another interesting direction when it was revealed in May that Martin Scorsese was working with Lonergan to “arbitrate” a cut of the film. We still remained skeptical that this would be completed, but alas, it seems it has.

Starring Anna Paquin, Mark Ruffalo, Matt Damon, Matthew Broderick, Jean Reno andOlivia Thirlby, the film has echoes of 9/11 survivor’s guilt, and follows the ramifications of a tragic bus accident as seen through the eyes of a high school student desperate to parse the tragedy for a deeper spiritual meaning. On paper it sounds great, but that release date is worrisome. It’s essentially just over a month away with nothing in the way of marketing. We have an uneasy feeling that Fox Searchlight is simply making good on their contractual obligations, and will dump the film in a (very) limited release before it quietly disappears from theaters. No word yet on the running time, but we doubt we’re getting the three-hour cut that Ruffalo described as a “masterpiece,” calling it “a very, very finely interwoven piece of material and it’s so beautiful….It was beautifully shot, beautifully acted, and the writing is incredible. It’s a love story to a post-9/11 America and New York City.”

It’s a rather anti-climatic end to such a long journey and we hope that Lonergan’s version at least gets a DVD/BluRay release. But one “lost film” has now been found and is coming to theater—let’s just hope it’s one near you.

-Joey's Two Cents: I've followed the journey of this film for years (even back a few years ago when our very own Clayton Davis was invited to a test screening of the flick), and can't wait to finally see it...thoughts?

John Krasinski will star in Matt Damon's directorial debut...

...according to Collider:

Never one to be outdone by his Good Will Hunting buddy Ben Affleck, Matt Damon will soon follow that old actor’s cliché and admit that all he ever really wanted to do was direct. Damon has been considering stepping into a director’s chair for a while now, initially planning to cut his teeth on the long discussed baseball wife-swap movie The Trade, which also would have featured himself and Affleck in the lead roles. However, that movie is now on hold due to undetermined legal troubles and Damon plans to move on to Father Daughter Time: A Tale of Armed Robbery and Eskimo Kisses. The wheels are already in motion on the project, with a rough start date in place for next year with John Krasinski attached to star. Hit the jump for further details on Damon’s directorial debut.

Matt Damon might be making his directorial debut soon...

...according to Deadline:

In a $500,000 against $800,000 deal, Warner Bros is finalizing a deal to acquire Father Daughter Time: A Tale of Armed Robbery and Eskimo Kisses, the Matthew Aldrich spec that Deadline told you yesterday had five bids on the table. The deal is just happening, and I expect the next development to be that Matt Damon is working on this picture as its star and also eyeing it as potentially the one on which he'll make his feature directing debut. He will also produce through his WB-based company Pearl Street, with partner Ben Affleck, Chris Moore and Drew Vinton also producing.

This has been a spec auction with some big twists and turns, because one of the bids that rivaled the one from Warner Bros was made by Damon and Moore, with money from a private financier. Other bids came in from Paramount (with JJ Abrams attached to produce), Fox (for Peter Chernin), Mandate, Walter Parkes through his discretionary fund, with Relativity Media and others also in the mix.

The script focuses on a man who goes on the lam with his daughter, his accomplice on a three-state crime spree.