Bleecker Street announces that it has nabbed North American rights to first-time feature director Andrew Cumming’s Stone Age-set thriller, The Origin from Sony Pictures’ Stage 6. The script was written by Ruth Greenberg (Run) with Escape Plan Productions’ Oliver Kassman (Saint Maud) producing. The film made its world premiere at the 2022 BFI London Film Festival to critical and audience acclaim, going on to be nominated for five British Independent Film Awards, with a win for Best Breakthrough Performance. Bleecker Street is planning a fall/winter 2023 theatrical release.

Set more than 45,000 years in the past, Cumming’s highly original horror follows a disparate gang of early humans who band together in search of a new land. But when they suspect a malevolent, mystical, being is hunting them down, the clan is forced to confront a horrifying danger they never imagined.  The film’s young breakout cast includes Chuku Modu (Captain Marvel, “Game of Thrones”), Kit Young (“Shadow and Bone”, The School for Good and Evil), Iola Evans (Choose or Die, “Carnival Row”), Safia Oakley-Green (“Sherwood”, “Extraordinary”), Luna Mwezi (Needle Park Baby, “Emma Lugt”), Arno Luening (Divine Comedy, Bad Girls) and newcomers Rosebud Melarkey and Tyrell Mhlanga.

David Kaplan (It Comes at Night, It Follows), Sam Intili (I Saw The TV Glow), Kristin Irving for the BFI (awarding funds from the National Lottery) and Leslie Finlay for Screen Scotland serve as Executive Producers. The acquisition was negotiated by Kent Sanderson and Avy Eschenasy on behalf of Bleecker Street with Stage 6.