‘The Martian’ to premiere at Toronto, ‘Demolition’ to open

“Demolition“, from “Dallas Buyers Club” director Jean-Marc Vallée, is not set for release until April and will not be among award contenders later this year.

Scott’s The Martian – a 20th Century Fox film starring Matt Damon, Jessica Chastain, Kate Mara, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Jeff Daniels and Kristen Wiig – will bow in Toronto ahead of its October 2 U.S. theatrical release.

Other stand-out screenings include Tom Hooper’s The Danish Girl, in which Redmayne plays one of the first ever recipients of gender reassignment surgery. Moore stars opposite Canada’s Ellen Page as a lesbian couple fighting for gay rights in Peter Sollett’s Freeheld. “You make me feel at home, and I am grateful and honoured to have my film as the opener for the Festival’s 40th anniversary”.

Tom Hardy splits into two, so to speak, to play both villainous siblings of the notorious Kray Brothers of British crime lore in Brian Helgeland’s Legend.

Other films making their world premieres at the festival include Ridley Scott’s “The Martian“, starring Matt Damon, and Stephen Frears’ “The Program”, starring Ben Foster and Dustin Hoffman, which tracks the rise and fall of Lance Armstrong. Some of the other notable Canuck features, also announced Tuesday, are Deepa Mehta’s Vancouver gang war drama Beeba Boys, Paul Gross’s Afghanistan War drama Hyena Road and Atom Egoyan’s Holocaust retribution drama Remember.

Breaking Bad’s Bryan Cranston and Diane Lane star in Jay Roach’s Trumbo, the story of Oscar-winning screenwriter Donald Trumbo, who wrote such Hollywood classics as Exodus and Spartacus, yet whose career was nearly destroyed when he was blacklisted as a communist.

There’s also North American premieres for films first seen in Cannes: Jacques Audiard’s Palme d’Or award victor Dheepan; Denis Villeneuve’s Sicario, starring Emily Blunt, Benicio Del Toro and Josh Brolin; Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos’ The Lobster, featuring Colin Farrell, Rachel Weisz and Lea Seydoux; Paolo Sorrentino’s Youth, the Italian director’s second English language pic that stars Harvey Keitel and Michael Caine; Zhangke Jia’s Mountains May Depart; and Joachim Trier’s Louder Than Bombs, starring Gabriel Byrne, Jesse Eisenberg and Isabelle Huppert. Those venues will still be reserved for world and North American premieres. Nicole Kidman, Bateman and Christopher Walken star.

More films, including the closing night selection, will be announced in the coming weeks.