Someone loves “Love Me.” The indie romance starring Kristen Stewart and Steven Yeun that made its premiere in competition at this year’s Sundance Film Festival has been acquired for U.S. theatrical release by Bleecker Street and ShivHans Pictures. The film will open in theaters in 2025.
“Love Me” from directors Sam and Andy Zuchero is the story of a buoy and a satellite who meet online long after humanity’s extinction. Stewart and Yeun play human manifestations of the two animatronic lovers who have evolved after billions of years of love and romance. The film explores what it means to be alive and be in love all as they learn about what life was like on Earth before humanity’s extinction.
In order to secure distribution, Bleecker is co-distributing “Love Me” alongside ShivHans Pictures, which also produced the film. Both entities have financial skin in the game in terms of handling its theatrical release strategy. The two companies recently partnered on the Helen Mirren biopic “Golda” and “The Wedding Banquet” starring Lily Gladstone.
“Love Me” is still seeking international deals, and WME Independent is now coming aboard to represent its foreign rights and shop it to potential buyers at the Cannes Marché du Film.
The filmmakers ahead of its Sundance premiere described “Love Me” as “Kubrick meets YouTube. Or a live-action version of ‘WALL-E.’” The married filmmakers Sam & Andy elaborated on that notion in an interview with IndieWire, explaining that the film isn’t really about artificial intelligence but about seeing the world through the lens of AI.
“It gave us an opportunity as artists to look at who we are right now without all the baggage that we normally bring to it,” Andy Zuchero said. “We’re looking at the internet and humanity with innocent eyes. But as far as how we wanted to depict AI, obviously we agree that there need to be guardrails. However, we have a great hope for this next chapter of technology. The lowest best-case scenario [for AI] is that it’s just a new tool that helps shape humanity for the future.”
Reviews for “Love Me” were muted (our critic called it “tedious”), but the film did win the festival’s Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize, presented to an outstanding title focusing on science or technology.
The film is produced by ShivHans Pictures, 2AM and AgX. Kevin Rowe, Luca Borghese, Ben Howe, Shivani Rawat, and Julie Goldstein serve as producers on the film, with Daniel Bekerman, Christine D’Souza Gelb and Connor Flanagan as executive producers.
Bleecker Street is premiering Guy Maddin’s “Rumours” at the Cannes Film Festival that’s about to kick off. ShivHans Pictures also produced Richard Linklater’s upcoming film “Hit Man.”
