It’s not every day you see a studio head riding a Harley.
But that’s precisely where you could find Focus Features’ chairman Peter Kujawski on Wednesday night in Downtown Los Angeles at the trailer re-launch for “The Bikeriders.”
Technically, Kujawski was revving the engine of the Harley-Davidson Jumpstart, a ride simulator. But Focus is doing the real work of reviving the awareness campaign for Jeff Nichols’ period drama about a Midwestern motorcycle club, starring Jodie Comer, Austin Butler and Tom Hardy.
After a strong debut at the 2023 Telluride Film Festival, the film was poised to make a splash during this year’s Oscar season. But last December, Focus swooped in to acquire the rights for “The Bikeriders” after Disney’s 20th Century Studios removed it from its release schedule amid the SAG-AFTRA strike and New Regency decided to shop the picture elsewhere.
Now, with a June 21 theatrical release date fast approaching, it’s up to Focus to create a new awareness campaign for the film — and the studio has decided to lean into the alluring machismo of motorcycle culture in a new trailer.
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In pursuit of a broader appeal, Focus’ trailer skews slightly more masculine than the first footage, which told the Vandals’ story from the perspective of Kathy (Jodie Comer) as she grappled with her brooding husband Benny’s (Austin Butler) involvement in the group.
The two-and-a-half minute clip is driven by Tom Hardy’s Johnny, the tough guy founder of the biker gang, and establishes how the Vandals rose to prominence. It also puts Benny squarely in the middle of two forces — Johnny, who preaches brotherly love above all, and Kathy, who grows increasingly wary of the trouble the club starts to get into that threatens to tear it all apart.
Nichols unveiled the clip — which will also have prime placement before Butler’s buzzy performance as Feyd-Rautha in “Dune: Part Two” — before an assembly of movie journalists and film critics at the Bike Shed in Downtown L.A., a modern (and quite posh) motorcycle club and bar.
“Twenty years ago, I picked up Danny Lyons’ book of photographs and I’ve been obsessed with them ever since,” the writer-director said. “I tried the best I could to make a movie that would make people feel the way that I felt when I picked up that book. … They’re just the coolest fucking photos in the world. And that’s the kind of movie I want to make.”
Nichols thanked the Focus team for their support as “The Bikeriders” adopts this new vibe and encouraged partygoers to check out all the Bike Shed had in store, including the debut of a new model Harley-Davidson inspired by the bike Hardy rides in the film, and an onsite tattoo parlor, where artists were primed and ready for anyone who wanted to get inked with the Vandals’ logo.
“About two days before we started filming, I got a text from Tom Hardy,” Nichols explained. “And it was a picture of that tattooed on his body, with the words that said ‘This movie better be good.’” Then he issued a challenge: “If Tom Hardy can get that tattoo before shooting a frame of film in this movie, there has to be a human being in this room that will go get it, so we’re gonna find out just how inspiring this trailer really is.”
