Jonathan Majors
John Nacion/Getty Pictures
A yr in the past, Jonathan Majors launched into a 29-hour drive from his house in New York Metropolis to Park Metropolis, Utah, the place he unveiled the physique constructing drama Journal Goals to rapturous opinions on the Sundance Movie Competition. It was the beginning of what was speculated to be a banner yr, which was to incorporate blockbuster roles and an awards season marketing campaign for Journal Goals.
That dream has been placed on maintain because the actor awaits a Feb. 6 sentencing for assault and harassment convictions following a March 2023 incident involving ex-partner Grace Jabbari.
The profession fallout for Majors has been extreme, with Disney-owned Marvel Studios dropping him as chief villain Kang the Conqueror hours after his conviction. And the destiny of Journal Goals remains to be within the stability at esteemed specialty studio Searchlight, additionally owned by Disney.
Searchlight, house of quite a few Oscar finest image winners, acquired Journal Goals after Sundance in February 2023. The studio gave the movie an awards-friendly December launch date, however pulled it from the calendar in October within the leadup to Majors’ trial.
Now, a launch by Searchlight is trying an increasing number of unlikely.
Formally, Searchlight is sustaining radio silence on the undertaking’s destiny. Unofficially, sources near the undertaking don’t see a state of affairs by which Searchlight opens the film on the massive display, and even on Disney’s extra adult-skewing streaming service Hulu as some have speculated. Advertising and marketing the movie would probably be problematic, due to its themes of non-public violence.
But others are assured the movie will nonetheless see the sunshine of day elsewhere. It’s attainable Searchlight may determine to return Journal Goals to the filmmakers, who may store the movie to different consumers. Jennifer Fox, Dan Gilroy, Jeffrey Soros and Simon Horsman produced the function, with Majors among the many government producers.
Journal Goals hails from writer-director Elijah Bynum, who first penned it as a story of isolation and alienation in the course of the early days of the pandemic. He put the script apart for a yr earlier than sooner or later seeing Majors’ face on a Los Angeles metropolis bus and turning into impressed to rewrite it for the actor particularly. The film stars Majors as Killian Maddox, an novice physique builder who battles private demons.
Majors skilled for 18 months to remodel himself bodily for the function, which critics have in comparison with Robert De Niro’s work as Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver. The movie shot for twenty-four days round L.A. and in the end landed the artistic imaginative and prescient jury prize at Sundance.
“It’s an all-in efficiency for the ages, layered with as a lot vulnerability as anger, and it’s to Majors’ credit score that our hearts ache for Killian even — or maybe particularly — when he’s uncontrolled,” wrote The Hollywood Reporter chief movie critic David Rooney out of Sundance. “Majors and writer-director Elijah Bynum handle the appreciable feat of creating us concern extra for the intimidating colossus than the quivering employer he’s standing over.”
After Searchlight acquired the movie, for beneath the $2 million vary, sources say the plan was for Bynum to advantageous tune a minimize of the function for its theatrical launch, although it’s unclear if work commenced on this new minimize. What is evident: Sundance already felt like a smooth launch for a Majors’ Oscar marketing campaign.
“It will have 100% been within the awards dialog” had it not been for Majors’ authorized troubles, says one supply within the orbit of the movie.
As for Majors, he’s making an attempt to reframe his public picture and maybe save his profession. In an uncommon transfer for somebody awaiting sentencing, he granted a broadcast interview that has been airing this week on ABC. Requested by ABC Information Dwell “Prime” anchor Linsey Davis if he believed he would work in Hollywood once more, he said: “Yeah. I do. I pray I do.”
—Borys Equipment contributed to this story.
A earlier model of this story misstated the sale worth for Journal Goals.
