Sender, the psychological thriller starring Severance’s Britt Lower alongside Jamie Lee Curtis, David Dastmalchian, Rhea Seehorn, and Anna Baryshnikov, has found a U.S. distributor. Deadline reports that Dark Sky Films has acquired U.S. distribution rights to the film and will release Sender nationwide in theatres in spring 2027.
The feature debut of writer/director Russell Goldman, Sender premiered at SXSW earlier this year in the Narrative Feature Competition. The film has since played the San Francisco International Film Festival, where it was selected as a Marquee Presentation, and won jury prizes for Best Feature at both the Sidewalk Film Festival and Chattanooga Film Festival. The Dark Sky Films deal comes ahead of the film’s Los Angeles premiere at Beyond Fest and its European premiere at the 59th Sitges International Fantastic Film Festival.
The official synopsis reads:
“In Sender, Lower stars as Julia, “a recently sober and unemployed woman attempting to rebuild her life in a new suburban rental, one online order at a time. When unmarked packages she never purchased begin arriving at her home, their eerie specificity starts to feel like a message from someone who knows exactly who she used to be. As Julia becomes increasingly consumed with discovering who is behind the deliveries, she turns to delivery driver Charlie (David Dastmalchian), her sister Tatiana (Anna Baryshnikov), and Whitney (Rhea Seehorn), a woman from her recovery group, for help. Her search eventually leads her to Lisa Barr (Jamie Lee Curtis), who has been receiving disturbingly familiar packages of her own.”
The cast also includes Utkarsh Ambudkar. Curtis produces the film alongside Molly Hallam and Jake Katofsky, with Goldman, Lower, Akshay Shah, Thomas Grabinski, Paris Jones, and Andre Ray serving as executive producers.
Goldman’s screenplay first appeared on the 2023 Black List of unproduced screenplays.
Sender already has a review from JoBlo’s Chris Bumbray, who caught the film at SXSW. In his review, Bumbray praised Lower’s lead performance while taking issue with the film’s handling of its recovery drama and thriller elements. He wrote that Lower makes for a compelling protagonist and described her as an actor with “real star quality,” while ultimately giving the movie a 5/10, or Below Average rating.
“The dream of any filmmaker is finding a distributor that understands your film and wants to put it in front of as many eyeballs as possible,” said Goldman. “Sender isn’t the kind of film that fits neatly into a box, which makes it especially meaningful that the entire MPI and Dark Sky team has a real vision for its nationwide theatrical release. I’m grateful to JLC, Britt, Jake, Molly, Thomas and the entire cast and crew, and proud our film will be at the home as some of the most exciting films of the decade. To use one of JLC’s favorite phrases, “Let’s f–king go.””
“What drew us to Sender was how confidently Russell takes a familiar anxiety and turns it into something completely unexpected,” said Greg Newman, Executive Vice President of Dark Sky Films. “It’s smart, unsettling and darkly funny, with an incredible cast that keeps you invested at every turn.”
“Russell has made the kind of bold, original thriller that immediately gets under your skin and stays there,” added Justin DiPietro, Executive Vice President of MPI Media Group. “With an extraordinary cast, Sender is exactly the kind of distinctive filmmaking we want to champion at Dark Sky. We believe this is a film audiences will want to experience together in a theater, and we’re excited to give it our biggest theatrical push yet.”
Are you looking forward to seeing Sender when Dark Sky brings it to theatres across the U.S. in spring 2027? Let us know by leaving a comment below.