Oscilloscope Laboratories Looks To Mar. 11 For The Release Of DVD And Blu-ray Editions Of Director Ethan Hawke's Wildcat Starring Maya Hawke

Oscilloscope Laboratories has just sent out an alert to all fans of independent filmmaking.   The date is Mar. 11, which will be the street date for Blu-ray and DVD editions of the father/daughter bio pic, Wildcat … directed by Ethan Hawke and starring Maya Hawke as renown short story author (and novelist) Flannery O’Connor.

Wildcat is arthouse.   Wildcat is indie.   Wildcat is sensational (meaning very, very good as Maya brilliantly plays against “type”).

The film made its debut way back in September of 2023 at the Telluride Film Festival, worked the festival circuit, including a stop later the same month at the Toronto International Film Festival and then was picked up for theatrical distribution by Oscilloscope.   A domestic arthouse theatrical run was launched in May of last year.

For the record, the ARR comes in at 312 days and the box office take was an impressive $563,591 (excellent for a limited venue run).

Maya Hawke didn’t exactly come out of the blue with her breakout (scene-stealing) role as Robin in the Netflix series Stranger Things (she didn’t even show up until the third season) as she had been around for some time.   However, like a force of nature, she literally took over the wildly-popular series with her performance.   

Her career wasn’t hurt one bit when she played Linda Kasabian — a Charlie Manson “superstar” — in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in ... Hollywood the same year!
Like her father, she has guided her career towards arthouse and indie films, quickly making a name for herself is such films as Maestro, The Kill Room and Asteroid City.   

Remember, she was nixed for the big budget live-action version of The Little Mermaid early in her career, and perhaps that has stuck with her, since her only real mega-budget films have been as a voice talent in Inside Out and the sequel Inside Out 2 (which, by the way, has grossed something like $1.7 billion worldwide and is nominated for Best Animated Feature in this year’s Oscar derby)!

Here she plays the famed writer Flannery O’Connor.   A somewhat plain woman from the south, O’Connor was blessed with a vivid imagination and gift for writing, which got her invited into the New York City intellectual scene.   

After a romantic encounter with poet and mentor Robert Lowell (played by Philip Ettinger — Little Brother), she returned home (her landmark novel, “Wise Blood” was published in 1952) and the rest of her days are played out with her mother, Regina (Laura Linney), her Catholic Faith (Father Flynn is played by Liam Neeson) and what will be her long-running (and fatal) battle with Lupus.

She fills her time writing … writing … tick tock, time is running out.   Write!

Ethan Hawke directed and co-wrote the screenplay (he’s received two Oscar nominations for his writing — Before Sunset, Before Midnight) and was able to attract A-List talent well beyond the film’s modest budget because real actors (not just “Hollywood” pretty faces) want to be in his films.   

Maya Hawke is clearly following in her father’s footsteps!  Wildcat is a keeper, not only for Hawke’s direction and his daughter’s performance, but for the film itself … a modest story well-told.

Bonus features include commentary from filmmaker Ethan Hawke, who is joined by co-writer Shelby Gaines, “additional” footage (deleted scenes?), a behind-the-scenes featurette and the featurette titled “Flannery O’Connor and Wildcat.”