Paramount Sets 'By Any Means' for Sept. 4 Release
Get the Culture newsletter
Daily culture — film, music, books, the trends and ideas worth your attention. Free.
- Paramount Pictures acquired U.S. rights to "By Any Means" and dated the film for a Sept. 4 theatrical release, with Elegance Bratton directing and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II and Mark Wahlberg starring.
- Yahya Abdul-Mateen II and Mark Wahlberg play a young Black FBI agent and a hardened mafia hitman forced into an uneasy alliance in 1966 Mississippi to track down those responsible for the killing of civil rights leaders, uncovering a broader conspiracy.
- Nicole Beharie, David Strathairn, Giancarlo Esposito, Josh Lucas, and Ethan Embry round out the cast of the true-events-inspired thriller.
- Sascha Penn wrote the screenplay, with Bratton and Chester Algernal Gordon producing under their Freedom Principle banner alongside Hammerstone Studios (Alex Lebovici), Thunder Road (Basil Iwanyk and Erica Lee), and Wahlberg and Stephen Levinson's Municipal.
- Bratton lands the project on the strength of his 2022 narrative debut "The Inspection" (TIFF premiere, Jeremy Pope and Gabrielle Union) and documentaries "Pier Kids" (2019) and "Move Ya Body: The Birth of House."
- WME Independent handled the domestic sale while North.five.six manages international sales.
Why it matters: Paramount's Sept. 4 slot places the film in the late-summer corridor before fall prestige titles arrive. The Wahlberg-Abdul-Mateen II pairing packages a true-events civil rights story for both commercial and awards-leaning audiences, and Bratton scales from his 'The Inspection' indie breakout to a major studio platform with a heavyweight producing lineup.
