Thriller ‘Sender’, Starring Britt Lower, Rhea Seehorn, David Dastmalchian & Jamie Lee Curtis, Gets U.S. Deal

EXCLUSIVE: Dark Sky Films has acquired U.S. distribution rights to Sender, the psychological thriller from writer-director Russell Goldman, starring Britt Lower, Rhea Seehorn, Anna Baryshnikov, David Dastmalchian, Utkarsh Ambudkar, and Jamie Lee Curtis, who also produces.

Following a festival run that began with its world premiere in Narrative Feature Competition at SXSW, Dark Sky Films will release the film nationwide in spring 2027.

The acquisition comes ahead of Senders’s Los Angeles premiere at Beyond Fest and European premiere at the 59th Sitges International Fantastic Film Festival. Following its SXSW debut, the film was selected as a Marquee Presentation at the San Francisco International Film Festival and won jury prizes for Best Feature at the Sidewalk Film Festival and Chattanooga Film Festival.

The distribution agreement was negotiated by Greg Newman, Executive Vice President of Dark Sky Films, with producers Jake Katofsky and Molly Hallam and writer-director Russell Goldman representing the filmmakers. Matt Shreder of Concourse Media is handling international sales.

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 film marks the debut feature from writer-director Goldman. His script first appeared in the 2023 Black List of unproduced screenplays.

Curtis is a producer alongside Molly Hallam and Jake Katofsky. Executive producers include Russell Goldman, Britt Lower, Akshay Shah, Thomas Grabinski, Paris Jones, and Andre Ray.

“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.”