Zendaya & John David Washington finish secret movie

Netflix continues to set the tone for the 2020 Toronto Film Festival Market. Deadline hears that the streamer is wrapping up a deal near $30 million for worldwide rights to Malcolm & Marie, a Sam Levinson-directed romantic drama that stars Zendaya and John David Washington.

Shot quietly during the production lockdown on 35mm in black and white with help from Fotokem, Malcolm & Marie was the first post-pandemic film to complete production. There was a stampede for this one, and I’m told that others in the mix were HBO, Amazon, Searchlight, MGM, Apple, A24 and Focus Features.

CAA Media Finance and Endeavor Content had screened promo footage on the film for buyers late last week. Sources said the promo reel was about 20 minutes. Washington plays a filmmaker who returns home with his girlfriend (Zendaya) following a celebratory movie premiere as he awaits what’s sure to be imminent critical and financial success. The evening suddenly takes a turn as revelations about their relationships begin to surface, testing the strength of their love.

Now set for Feb. 5, the film tells the story of a director (Washington) and his girlfriend (Zendaya) whose relationship is tested after they return home from the premiere of his latest project and await critics' responses.

Ahead of Friday's SAG Awards submission deadline, a decision has been made to release Sam Levinson's Malcolm & Marie — a two-hander which stars BlacKkKlansman and Tenet actor John David Washington and Euphoria actress Zendaya — into the current awards season, The Hollywood Reporter has learned.

Netflix, which acquired the black-and-white film for $30 million in September following a screening of select footage which resulted in bidding war between several distributors, will release it worldwide on its streaming platform on Feb. 5, 2021, and plans to wage a full-fledged Oscar campaign on its behalf.

A never-before-seen still of the film appears at the top of this post.

Malcolm & Marie — which Levinson wrote and directed, and which has been likened to Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? — tells the story of a director (Washington) and his girlfriend (Zendaya) whose relationship is tested after they return home from the premiere of his latest project and await the critical response to it.

The film was shot in 35 mm over the summer at Feldman Architecture’s Caterpillar House in Carmel, Cal., using a bare-bones crew due to the pandemic. The production teamed with doctors and lawyers to make sure that every aspect of their work was fully compliant with WGA, DGA and SAG-AFTRA approvals and COVID-19 safety protocols.

Levinson is also a producer of the film, while Zendaya (who today appears on the 50th anniversary cover of Essence magazine) and Washington are executive producers, as is rapper Kid Cudi and Yariv Milchan, the son of Oscar-nominated producer Arnon Milchan.

Levinson and Zendaya previously worked together on Euphoria, the HBO program for which the latter won this year's best actress in a drama series Emmy. Levinson and Washington, meanwhile, are second-generation members of revered Hollywood families — Levinson is the son of Oscar winner Barry Levinson and Washington is the son of Oscar winner Denzel Washington — as is one of the other producers, Levinson's wife Ashley Levinson, and one of the other executive producers, Washington's sister Katia Washington.

The second-gen Levinsons and Kevin Turen produced the film through their production company, which is also behind another 2020-2021 Netflix awards hopeful, Pieces of a Woman.