Ryusuke Hamaguchi four-time Oscar nominated Drive My Car has been acquired by the WarnerMedia‘s content elevation hub OneFifty. The Japanese drama will have its streaming debut on March 2 on HBO Max.
Co-written by Hamaguchi and Takamasa Oe, the film is adapted from the short story of the same name by legend Haruki Murakami. Drive My Car makes history as the first Japanese film ever to be nominated for Best Picture.
Drive My Car follows widowed actor/director, Yūsuke Kafuku (Hidetoshi Nishijima), as he directs a multilingual production of Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya in Hiroshima, while grappling with the sudden death of his wife. Mandated by the festival’s producers, Yusuke is assigned a chauffeur, a young woman named Misaki (Toko Miura), to take him to and from rehearsal each day. With the help of Misaki, Yusuke begins to face the haunting mysteries left behind by his wife during their long drives.
“As WarnerMedia’s ‘artist studio where innovation happens,’ OneFifty has built a track record of identifying incredible artists whose vision we believe in, and acquiring their extraordinary, groundbreaking content. Drive My Car is no exception. It is a beautiful masterpiece – a subtle but haunting work of artistic vision and innovation by a talented filmmaker and creative team” said Axel
Caballero, Head of WarnerMedia OneFifty.
Drive My Car joins a slate of OneFifty content that includes the NAACP Image Award-nominated live action short film When the Sun Sets as well as the 2022 Spirit Awards nominated film This is Not a War Story as well as the 2021 Oscar-nominated short White Eye and Sundance Sloan Winner Son of Monarchs.
Negotiations for Drive My Car were finalized by Leslie Cohen, SVP of Content Acquisitions for HBO/HBO Max with Chris Grunden, also SVP of Content Acquisitions for HBO/HBO Max.
