The worlds of The Social Network and Succession will collide later this year, with Jesse Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin sharing the screen in A Real Pain.
With one eye on the awards season, the film is scheduled for an October 18, 2024 release. The comedy-drama is Eisenberg’s sophomore attempt in the field of direction, following his Julianne Moore and Fionn Whitehead-starrer When You Finish Saving the World. Eisenberg has also penned the script, with Michael Dymek tasked with the camera work on the Searchlight Pictures film. Production houses involved include Topic Studios, Rego Park, Extreme Emotions, and Emma Stone’s Fruit Tree. Stone had producer credits on Eisenberg’s first film, as well.
The film marks Emmy-winner Kieran Culkin’s return to the big screen after 3 years; his last feature film was Steven Soderbergh’s 2021 crime drama No Sudden Move.
Culkin and Eisenberg are joined in the cast by Will Sharpe (White Lotus), Jennifer Grey (Ferris Bueller’s Day Off), Kurt Egyiawan (Beasts of No Nation), Liza Sadovy (Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street), Daniel Oreskes (Only Murders in the Building), and Ellora Torchia (Midsommar). The story follows two Jewish cousins who embark on a trip to Poland to honor their grandmother, only for past tensions to resurface against the backdrop of their family history.
The world took notice of A Real Pain after the film received rave reviews following its Sundance Film Festival premiere in January 2024. Searchlight Pictures was the quickest to react, as the studio bagged the movie for $10 million in an all-night auction.
Searchlight has rarely missed in terms of the movies it has backed lately, with Yorgos Lanthimos’ films Poor Things and Kinds of Kindness and Andrew Haigh’s All of us Strangers all getting positive reception from critics. A Real Pain will compete for audiences’ attention with Paramount’s horror movie Smile 2, starring Naomi Scott and Sosie Bacon, and an unknown title from Universal Pictures.
