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Justin Bieber ‘Believe’ Movie To Screen At Toronto Film Festival

By Page Mackinley
Published on: 09:54 PST, Sep 2, 2013

Justin Bieber’s Believe concert movie-documentary is set to be screened before select buyers at the Toronto International Film Festival.

The Festival officially opens in three days time and runs from September 5-15. News of Believe’s TIFF screening comes via Deadline who reveal US film distribution and sales operation IM Global is backing the film’s launch.

The movie-documentary is helmed by Jon M. Chu (Step Up: 2 and Step Up: 3D, G.I. Joe: Retaliation), who previously directed Bieber’s 2011 cinematic outing, Never Say Never which tracked the 10-day run up to the then 16-year-old’s “My World Tour” Madison Square Garden, New York City concert on August 31.

Deadline reports Believe is just one of the film slate titles IM Global is taking to Toronto. Of this, IM Chief Stuart Ford says the company is, “engineering its usual full-on assault on the marketplace.”

Believe will be released domestically via Open Road Films while IM Global’s label Opus will handle international sales.

Bieber’s Believe tour — the backdrop to Believe the movie — began last September and Deadline notes Chu filmed the movie-docu under the radar.

In the same vein as Never Say Never, Believe is expected to intercut concert footage with “origin” and candid content, but it’s likely very little of Justin’s dramatic on and off tour exploits will be seen in theaters.

Back in April, Chu spoke to the Los Angeles Times and revealed the movie was already being cut after filming Bieber’s Miami shows in January. Unless extra shooting has taken place — and that is a possibility — much of the Canadian’s extraordinary 2013 timeline probably won’t be in the film.


In that same interview Chu said the Believe movie was differently toned to Never Say Never, which may mollify some reviewers who previously compared NSN to the Nazi propaganda film Triumph Of The Will due to its overtly emotive ploys.

“It’s almost about a boy becoming an artist rather than a boy’s life,” Chu said of Believe. “Because his artistry is his [Bieber’s] life now.”

The director also said Believe was originally intended as a simple arc of Justin’s Believe world tour, but had now evolved beyond that to include footage of “choreographed, non-documentary sequences as well as revealing behind-the-scenes” material.

In recent months, Justin and his manager Scooter Braun have talked up the teen star’s upcoming single “Heartbreaker” and new album — which the pair refer to as a “music journal” — as not just about the music, but also a way to address what they consider to be a “witch hunt” of recent, devastating press.

Interest from Bieber’s devoted fans for the Believe movie-docu is expected to be high, and judging by the mostly sell-out shows on his tour there would seem to be a ready audience for a film based on that trek.

Whether Believe beats Never Say Never’s record as the highest grossing movie-biopic of all time — it grossed over $98 million worldwide — remains to be seen. But it should certainly give One Direction’s This Is Us a run for its money, given that the band’s $18 million opening weekend box office failed to top Never Say Never’s $29.5 million domestic equivalent.

Following Braun’s announcement that Believe would be released by this Christmas, recent tweets sent between him, Bieber and Chu, suggests they believe in the movie’s ability to correct what has been an unprecedented year of PR disasters for the teen superstar — and who knows — maybe even entertain too.

[Images via Just Jared]

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