He's already said repeatedly that the film will be released this summer (2012); but the question I've long asked is who the film's distributor will be, given that, until today, to the surprise of many, it had yet to be picked up by a distributor since its Sundance 2012 debut.

As I previously speculated, Spike Lee could very well have had something in development that we didn't know anything about (clearly), and that would be made public soon enough (like, today). Maybe negotiations with a distribution company (uh-huh); maybe he planned to self-distribute it, after all, as he said in a previous interview, he didn't go to Hollywood to help finance the film because he wanted to essentially maintain full control of it, and not have to make compromises on story, characters, etcc; So he could very well have opted to continue with that independent spirit, and will release the film on his own, maybe through some kind of service deal, or taking advantage of AMC's indie solution that's available to just about anyone (well, not quite anymore).

I even suggested that maybe AFFRM would acquire Red Hook Summer (nope).

Well, questioned answered… below from the official press release:

Republic of Brooklyn, April 25, 2012 – 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks announced today that the company will undertake its first independent distribution effort with founder Spike Lee’s Brooklyn coming-of-age story, RED HOOK SUMMER. 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks will partner with New York-based Variance Films for the theatrical release, which will begin August 10th, 2012 in New York City theaters, expanding to the top 30 markets throughout the month of August.

I saw the film at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, where it premiered; and if you haven't read my reactions to it, you're encouraged to do so HERE.

Reactions to it were mostly negative; so I can't help but wonder if Variance Films will be releasing the film as is, or if Spike will have to (or already has) done work on it to *clean* it up and get it ready for its theatrical release.

I guess we'll eventually find out!

But given that Variance Films is indeed a younger, and likely hungrier company, I'm not all that surprised by this pick-up.

So there ya have it. I'll follow-up with thoughts on this in a later post.