Following a strong year-long festival run that kicked off at Tribeca last June, Julian Glander’s quirky ultra-indie feature Boys Go to Jupiter will have a U.S. theatrical release in August. The film’s North American distribution rights have been acquired by Cartuna and Irony Point.
The cg film, which was made largely by two people, is described as “a surreal coming-of-age story set in suburban Florida,” and tells the story of Billy 5000, a teenage delivery driver who stumbles into a cosmic mystery after a routine gig leaves him caretaker of a mysterious alien egg.
“Julian is operating on another frequency,” said James Belfer, founder and CEO of Cartuna. “Boys Go to Jupiter explodes with color, heart, and musical absurdity. It’s like if a Saturday morning cartoon was beamed in from the future. We’re beyond thrilled to help bring it to the world.”
The film is the second acquisition this year by Brooklyn-based production studio Cartuna, which is making a move into film distribution. Earlier this year, the company picked up the live-action horror-coemdy Dead Lover out of Sundance. Cartuna also had two features at Sundance this year — Obex and By Design.
Daniel Powell and Alex Bach’s Irony Point, based out of N.Y.C. and L.A., is distributing an animated feature for the first time. The company’s tv and streaming credits include I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson (Netflix), Ugly Americans (Comedy Central), and Inside Amy Schumer (Comedy Central).
Boys Go to Jupiter marks the feature directorial debut of Glander, who has previously helmed projects for Adult Swim, Cartoon Network, HBO Max, and Disney, and created the cult video game ART SQOOL. The striking lo-fi cg style of his new film was produced entirely with the open-source software Blender, which was also used to make Gints Zilbalodis’s Oscar-winning Flow. We have previously profiled Boys Go to Jupiter on Cartoon Brew and also had Glander as a guest on our livestream last year.
Boys Go to Jupiter’s theatrical release will kick off at the IFC Center in New York on August 8, followed by the Laemmle Glendale in the Los Angeles area, and then national rollout.
Glander self-financed and produced the film at his Pittsburgh-based studio Glanderco, with Peisin Yang Lazo serving as executive producer.
