González Iñárritu's 'Biutiful' a Roadside Attraction

A few weeks ago, we showed you a post-Cannes trailer for Biutiful, the fourth feature film from director Alejandro González Iñárritu, his first with the estimable Javier Bardem. At the time, we said, "Oh, Focus will release this later this year," which is halfway accurate self-paraphrasing; in fact, Focus is running the film overseas but there's no distributor in the US. Or there wasn't, anyway. Deadline says Roadside Attractions is angling for the film's domestic rights, which would follow Biutiful's North American debut at the Toronto International Film Festival. The site points out it would position Roadside very strongly in early awards consideration. Bardem and González Iñárritu are sure to be looked at closely for anything they do, and the distributor also has Winter's Bone, which is generating miles of talk for actress Jennifer Lawrence. Bardem will be seen this weekend in Eat Pray Love with Julia Roberts, and then we'll have to wait a while after Biutiful to see him on screen again. He has a few things lined up, but they're not scheduled to be released until 2012. Meanwhile, González Iñárritu is developing a film called Saturn and the End of Days with Guillermo del Toro, which del Toro describes as, "a chronicle of the end of the world from the eyes of a 7-year-old. It has many things that are magical and terrible in it. It's the rapture."