‘Monkey Man’ Stomps Into SXSW As Dev Patel Gets Standing Ovation At World Premiere
deadline.comUniversal‘s bender of a weekend continued past Oscars into Monday night with the enthusiastic SXSW premiere of Monkeypaw’s Dev Patel feature directorial debut, Monkey Man, which blew the roof off Austin’s Paramount Theatre.
SXSW isn’t known for giving standing ovations, but Dev Patel –the movie’s director, producer, writer and action star– got a well deserved one for his bloodied portrayal of a young man avenging his mother’s death from a crooked cop.
Jordan Peele was on hand to introduce Patel ahead of the screening. “This is a film that simply demands to be seen in a theater with a huge rockstar audience,” said Peele who after seeing the movie, pivoted over to his theatrical output deal at Universal.
Monkey Man was originally set up at Netflix, which took the film’s global for $30M. Now it has a big screen release set for April 5. “I’ve never seen someone pour his heart, soul, body, mind and energy into a film, into a story more than this man,” exclaimed Peele about Patel.
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