Luc Besson’s ‘Dogman’ Lands March 2024 Release Date in U.S. Theaters

Writer-director Luc Besson’s Dogman will arrive in U.S. cinemas this spring, Briarcliff Entertainment announced Tuesday.

The dark thriller, starring Caleb Landry Jones, will open in select cinemas on March 15 and then expands on March 22.

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Dogman is the embattled filmmaker’s first movie to arrive in theaters after he was cleared of rape charges by a French court last summer, weeks before Besson’s new film made its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival. And it’s also his first directorial effort since 2019’s Anna.

Briarcliff, an indie distributor, picked up U.S. rights to the movie following its debut at Venice, where it was a major curiosity factor. The drama stars Jones as a tortured young man who finds salvation through the love of his dogs.

Besson has rebuked the notion that the movie is his comeback. “It’s really hard when you get to 60, because you never know your juice is over,” Besson told The Hollywood Reporter in a recent interview. “A sports guy knows — he has a chronometer. But with an artist, you never know.

He added, “I never want to do one film too much and have people say, ‘oh, he was great before.’ So you try to figure out if you still have things to say, and, for now, I’m ok. So maybe I have one or two more.”

The French filmmaker’s raft of credits includes cult favorite The Fifth Element and, more recently, the big-budget epic flop Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets.

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