US Briefs: 'The Big Sick' gets US theatrical release via Lionsgate

The Big Sick co-writer Kumail Nanjiani – one half of the real-life love affair that inspired the story – stars alongside Zoe Kazan, Holly Hunter and Ray Romano.

Michael Showalter directed The Big Sick, which premiered in Sundance. FilmNation represents international sales.

• The 60th San Francisco International Film Festival will close with The Green Fog – A San Francisco Fantasia. The project is a new commission by the Film Society and Stanford Live in which the Kronos Quartet will perform a new score by Jacob Garchik to accompany a visual collage by Guy Maddin.
• South African drama Colors Of Heaven, the winner of two South African ‘Oscars’ at the SAFTA awards, premieres on Netflix on Wednesday [15]. The story of the fall and rise of South Africa black film star Muntu Ndebele stars Wandile Molebatsi, Jason Hartman, Stelio Savante, Masello Motana and Mpho Osei Tutu. Peter Bishai directs the film, which launches on the streaming service in the US, UK, Latin America, Australia and New Zealand. 
• Annapurna Pictures has partnered with Susan and Robert Downey Jr’s Team Downey production company on an untitled feature film based on the episode Man Of The People from Gimlet Media’s REPLY ALL podcast. Richard Linklater is set to direct the project and Downey Jr. attached to star in the story of fake medicine con-artist John Brinkley and a doctor’s quest to expose him.
• Submarine Entertainment and ByStorm Films have boarded the authorised NOTORIOUS B.I.G. doc tentatively titled Notorious B.I.G.: One More Chance. Emmett Malloy and Brendan Malloy will direct and David Koh, Dan Braun, Wayne Barrow and Keith Miller are producing.
• A24 has moved up the release date for Trey Edward Shults’s horror It Comes At Night. Shults’s follow-up to Krisha had been scheduled to open in August and will now debut on June 9. Joel Edgerton, Riley Keogh, Christopher Abbott and Carmen Ejogo star, and Andrea Roa and David Kaplan serve as producers.