White Bird | |
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Directed by | Marc Forster |
Screenplay by | Mark Bomback |
Based on | White Bird: A Wonder Story by R. J. Palacio |
Produced by |
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Starring |
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Cinematography | Matthias Koenigswieser |
Edited by | Matt Chessé |
Music by | Thomas Newman |
Production companies |
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Distributed by | Lionsgate |
Release dates |
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Running time | 120 minutes [1] |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Box office | $2.3 million [2] |
White Bird (marketed with the subtitle A Wonder Story) is a 2024 American coming-of-age period drama film directed by Marc Forster from a screenplay by Mark Bomback, based on the 2019 graphic novel of the same name by R. J. Palacio. Serving as both a prequel and sequel to Wonder (2017), the film stars Ariella Glaser, Orlando Schwerdt, Bryce Gheisar, Gillian Anderson, and Helen Mirren, with Gheisar reprising his role as Julian from Wonder.
White Bird was released in EU (Italy, Slovenia, Croatia) on 4 January 2024; it is scheduled to be released in the United States by Lionsgate on October 4, 2024. [3]
After the events of Wonder , Julian has left Beecher Prep for good. He is visited by his grandmother Sara (whose professional name is Grandmère) from Paris, who, in response to Julian's reflection about his need to be socially passive in order to fit in at his new school, tells him about her childhood as a young Jewish girl in Nazi-occupied France during World War II.
In 1942, Sara evades being rounded up by the German troops and spends more than one year being hidden by her classmate Julien (one of whose legs is congenitally paralysed by poliomyelitis) in a barn of the house where he lives with his parents. She is instructed never to leave the barn to prevent being discovered by the neighbours suspected of being informants for the Germans. At night Julien teaches Sara what he has learned at school during the day. Affection between them grows into love.
In 1944 after liberation of Monte Cassino, Julien is stopped on his way to school at a German checkpoint by the Milice and thrown into the back of a lorry for transportation to a remote camp in the mountains. During an escape attempt by the other prisoners, he is shot dead. At the end of the war Sara is reunited with her father, her mother has been killed at KZ Auschwitz.
In October 2019, Lionsgate acquired the rights to R.J. Palacio's White Bird: A Wonder Story . Palacio said "[t]he team at Lionsgate values artists and storytellers and has been crucial to expanding the fan community surrounding Wonder. They have been enormously supportive as I have been writing White Bird and I could not feel more secure that my new graphic novel is in the right creative hands at the right studio." [4] The film is produced by Todd Lieberman and David Hoberman from Mandeville Films. Jeffrey Skoll and Robert Kissel from Participant executive produce. Marc Forster was announced as director with Mark Bomback writing and executive producing. [5] [6]
In February 2021, Bryce Gheisar was confirmed to reprise his role as Julian from the 2017 film Wonder , while Helen Mirren, Gillian Anderson, Orlando Schwerdt and Ariella Glaser joined the cast. [7]
Principal photography commenced in February 2021 in the Czech Republic. [8]
White Bird: A Wonder Story was initially scheduled to be released on September 16, 2022, [9] but was later delayed to October 14, 2022. [10] In September 2022, Lionsgate removed the film from its release schedule. [11] The film, presented as a "sneak preview", premiered at the 43rd San Francisco Jewish Film Festival on July 30, 2023, with a taped introduction by producer Lieberman. [1]
In January 2023, it was announced White Bird was scheduled to debut in a limited release on August 18, 2023, followed by a wide release on August 25, 2023. [12] However, in July 2023, as a result of the SAG-AFTRA strike, Lionsgate pushed the release to an unspecified date in the fourth quarter of 2023. [13] In December 2023, Lionsgate redated the film for October 4, 2024. [14]
White Bird was released in Italy, Croatia and Slovenia on January 4, 2024. [3]
Writing for Variety, Dennis Harvey gave the film a positive review, saying that "Marc Forster’s film elevates somewhat contrived material with tastefully lyrical craftsmanship" and further adding, [15]
Though the occasional preachy, maudlin or trite note remains, Foster also manages to make “White Bird” less conspicuously conceived for tweens. He arrives at an unhurried yet sufficiently suspenseful pace that engrosses while side-stepping excess melodrama and sentimentality.
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Wonder is a contemporary children's novel written by R. J. Palacio and published on 14 February 2012. Wonder is in part inspired by an incident where the author's son started to cry after noticing a girl with a severe facial deformity. Inspiration was also pulled from Natalie Merchant's song of the same name. Several spin-offs have been published, including 365 Days of Wonder: Mr. Browne's Book of Precepts, We're All Wonders, Auggie and Me, and White Bird. A film adaptation was released in 2017, and a spin-off sequel film followed in 2024.
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