NEON announced today it will handle theatrical distribution for Justin Simien’s horror satire Bad Hair, one of the buzziest titles out of this year’s Sundance Film Festival which closed a competitive worldwide deal with Hulu following its premiere.
The film has since been featured in Essence Festival, CurlFest, UrbanWorld, where Simien (Dear White People) received the 2020 Festival Ambassador Award, Chicago Film Festival, New York Comic Con, Beyond Fest and One Music Festival. Bad Hair is written and directed by Simien, who also produced alongside Sight Unseen’s Julia Lebedev, Angel Lopez, and Eddie Vaisman.
Leading up to its Hulu launch, the film will be released in drive-in theaters in major markets across the country including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Philadelphia, Atlanta, New Orleans, Detroit, Austin, Sacramento and Las Vegas. The film will then premiere digitally on Hulu on October 23rd.
This most recent collaboration between NEON and Hulu comes on the heels of the wildly successful, PALM SPRINGS, which they jointly acquired out of this year’s Sundance.
In this horror satire set in 1989, Bad Hair follows an ambitious young woman (Elle Lorraine) who gets a weave in order to succeed in the image-obsessed world of music television. However, her flourishing career comes at a great cost when realizes that her new hair may have a mind of its own.
The film stars Elle Lorraine, Vanessa Williams, Lena Waithe, Laverne Cox, Jay Pharoah, Kelly Rowland, Blair Underwood, James Van Der Beek, and Ur Raymond. Executive Producers include Leonid Lebedev, Oren Moverman, and Alex G. Scott. The film is produced by Sight Unseen in association with Culture Machine.
A strong multicultural world creator, Simien has previously collaborated with the Sight Unseen team on the Sundance hit Dear White People, with Lebedev serving as Executive Producer on the series of the same name, which is now in its fourth season on Netflix.
Sight Unseen is also behind Cory Finley’s Bad Education starring Hugh Jackman, which won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Television Movie following its acclaimed debut on HBO.