Darwin Awards (2006)

Official Darwin Awards Website

Cast:

Story

After Michael Burroughs lost his job as police profiler he'sa trying to make his „hobby“ into a job – investigating Darwin Awards cases for a major insurance company. To proove his point the company gives him one month. During this time he's paired up with senior claims investigator Siri Taylor...

My Opinion

Winona and Joseph Fiennes act well and mostly funny - even if both face no real acting challanges.

The episodes with the weird deaths and incidents are morbid funny. Not everyones taste - but if you like Monty Phyton or the spanish comic Clever&Smart you will laugh here, too.

I'd give the movie a 6 - 6.5 out of 10. Clearly better than „Boys“, „Deeds“ or „Lost Souls“ - that this movie has so much troubles getting distribution is beyond me...

Vidcaps from the DVD

Promotion Pictures for European Release

Premiere and Reactions

The premiere was hel in the shadow of the sudden death of Chris Penn. Premiere festivities were cut down to a minimum.

Critic reactions are mixed at best. From „The biggest flop of the festival“ (Variety) over „A trainwreck with lots of interesting pieces“ (Yahoo) till „The audience roared with laughter all the way through“ (Wendy Northcutt).

The only hope is that this movie has irritated the critics but convinced the audience – and Variety also busted Star Trek when it came out („Leonard Noymoy (!!!) appears wooden“). However rumour on the net is that Darwin Awards will be shown with at least 200 copies in the US.

Darwin Awards at Sundance Festival

Darwin Awards will premiere at the Sundance Festival this January. Screening times are as follows:

• January 25, 6:00pm – Eccles Theatre – World Premiere

• January 26, 2:30pm – Library Center Theatre

• January 27, 9:30pm – Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center

However there's still no general release date – but I belief that after the success at Sundance the descision will be made soon.

Latest News: Darwin Awards is sold to distributors in Germany, United Kingdom & Ireland, Scandinavia and Japan

Critic Trevor Groth, the founder and programming director of CineVegas, says about this movie:

Promotion- and Behind-the-Scenes Pictures for Sundance

First Poster and Website

Icon Entertainment – for which Darwin Awards was made – has put up the first official website which contains a movie outline and a small poster.

It is also confirmed that Darwin Awards will be released by Paramount Pictures.

New Behind the Scenes Pictures

Two new pictures from behind the scenes of the above scene appeared on the net:

Story:

The Darwin Awards are posthumous going to poeple who have killed themselves in a very stupid way.

The darwin-awards representative Michael Burrows (Joseph Fiennes) and insurance claims investigator Siri Tyler (Winona Ryder) are investigating the death of a potential Darwin Awards nominee. During the investigation they fall in love with each other.

My Opinion:

I hope this will become a really good black comedy – story and cast are very promising.

The filming of Darwin Awards had begun on the 6th of December in the city of Oakland and continued during December 2004 in the city of San Francisco, Treasure Island and the city of Hayward – read more about the filming in Hayward in this article of the TriValley Herald.

Until now no photos are available – but according to rumors filming will continue during January and will finish in the first week of February 2005.

This movie may be released in summer/autumn 2005. Until then read about weird deaths at Darwin Awards Homepage.

Articles:

• Tinseltown comes to Hayward

• Article by SFist.com