‘A Nice Indian Boy’: Why Levantine Films Believes the Queer Indie Rom-Com Has the Potential to Pop in Theaters
variety.comMatt Minton mminton@variety.com Levantine Films is betting on the queer rom-com “A Nice Indian Boy” with a theatrical release — a show of confidence in an era where rom-coms are often relegated to streaming platforms.
The film stars “Deadpool” actor Karan Soni as an Indian man who brings his white-orphan-artist boyfriend (played by Tony and Grammy winner Jonathan Groff) home to his traditional family.
When Levantine Films CEO Benjamin Hung first read Madhuri Shekar’s play, on which the film is based, he recognized that the story was “less about coming out” and more about the process of crossing cultures. “Ideally, we’re looking for projects that are very uplifting and give people hope,” Hung tells Variety about what appealed enough to make a movie.
Levantine, the New York-based indie production and financing company behind awards darlings like “Hidden Figures” and “Beasts of No Nation,” along with crowd-pleasers like “Blinded by the Light” and “Jerry and Marge Go Large,” enlisted Justin Baldoni’s Wayfarer Studios to co-finance the film. “But we were going into production with or without them,” Hung explains. “A Nice Indian Boy” debuted in limited release across the country on Friday.
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