According to The Hollywood Reporter, Netflix has picked up two new indie films from Bob Odenkirk and Chris Sparling (The Sea Of Trees, Buried), both of which will be released in theaters. Following the season finale of With Bob And David—which is currently streaming on Netflix—Odenkirk has sold his noir comedy, Girlfriend’s Day, to the cord-cutter. Michael Stephenson (Best Worst Movie) is directing with a script from Odenkirk and his frequent collaborator, Eric Hoffman. As with Beasts Of No Nation, Netflix will make the film available online the same day that it hits theaters.
Girlfriend’s Day stars Odenkirk as Ray, a washed-up greeting-card writer in a world that reveres greeting-card writers for some reason. When Ray joins forces with his fellow saccharine scribes to compose the perfect card for the titular new holiday, he ends up ensnared in a “web of deceit and murder.” Amber Tamblyn will co-star as a “Cardie,” a card-writer groupie who tries to help Ray recapture the Hallmark-like magic. THR describes Tamblyn’s character as a “femme fatale,” so perhaps someone will end up licking poisoned envelopes.
Netflix will also distribute Sparling’s recently-wrapped film, Mercy, which stars Mad Men’s James Wolk and Masters Of Sex’s Caitlin FitzGerald. The home-invasion thriller follows “four estranged brothers who return to their childhood home to be with their dying mother, and find their bond tested after old family secrets begin to surface,” who will almost definitely not be doing great, Bob. Mercy has been in development since 2009, when the plot originally included the “violent wrath of a religious sect” being wrought upon the family.