Focus announced this morning it had acquired distribution rights to Jean-Marc Vallée‘s Dallas Buyers Club starring Matthew McConaughey in the lead role. The film is a 1980s-set drama based on a true story in which McConaughey portrays real-life Texas electrician Ron Woodroof, an ordinary man who found himself in a life-or-death battle with the medical establishment and pharmaceutical companies.
In 1986, Ron was blindsided by being diagnosed as HIV-positive and given 30 days to live. With the U.S. still internally divided over how to combat the virus and restricting medications, Ron grabbed hold of non-toxic alternative treatments from all over the world by means both legal and illegal. Seeking to avoid government sanctions against selling non-approved medicines and supplements, he established a “buyers club,” which fellow HIV-positive people could join for access to his supplies.
The film co-stars Jared Leto, Gael Garcia Bernal, Jennifer Garner and Steve Zahn with an original screenplay by Craig Borten and Melissa Wallack.
Much of the attention sure to be paid the film is the amount of weight McConaughey lost to play the role of Ron Woodroof. Repors say the actor lost 38 pounds, dropping to 135 pounds for the six-foot tall actor. He has since gained the weight back, but that image above shows just how dramatic the weight loss was.
Vallée’s last film was the satisfying, if not overly impressive, The Young Victoria, but this one has a tinge of immediacy to it, thanks in large part to last year’s documentary How to Survive a Plague. Dallas Buyers Club will not only have its time in the sun as a potential Oscar contender, but may also help bring rejuvinated attention to a disease that is on the rise though it seems not too many are even aware of that fact.
No release date has been announced yet, but I would suspect a late year, Toronto or Venice premiere is likely.
