Acclaimed Japanese Film Drive My Car Heads to HBO Max

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Acclaimed Japanese Film Drive My Car Heads to HBO Max

According to Deadline, WarnerMedia OneFifty has officially acquired the U.S. streaming rights to Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s 2021 Japanese drama titled Drive My Car. The acclaimed film is scheduled to premiere on March 2, 2022, exclusively on HBO Max.

This comes after it recently earned four Academy Award nominations including Best Picture, Best Director, Best International Feature Film, and Best Adapted Screenplay.

“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,” Head of WarnerMedia OneFifty, Axel Caballero said in a statement. “It is a beautiful masterpiece – a subtle but haunting work of artistic vision and innovation by a talented filmmaker and creative team.”

Drive My Car is directed by Ryusuke Hamaguchi from a screenplay he co-wrote with Takamasa Oe, based on a short story by Haruki Murakami. It centers around a renowned director as he builds a bond with a young woman who was assigned to chauffeur him in his red Saab 900.

The film stars Tōko Miura, Masaki Okada, Reika Kirishima, Park Yoo-rim, Satoko Abe, Jin Dae-yeon, and Sonia Yuan.

Drive My Car had its world premiere at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival, where it won three major awards including Best Screenplay. It also won a Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film.