Orson Welles’ unfinished final film, “The Other Side of the Wind,” may be heading for a theatrical release next year.

The New York Times has reported that Royal Road Entertainment has reached an agreement to buy the rights to “The Other Side of the Wind” with the aim of showing the film by May 6 — the 100th anniversary of Welles’ birth. The report said Royal Road is planning to promote the distribution at the American Film Market next week.

Welles shot the film-within-a-film between 1970 and 1976 and then worked on it until his death in 1985, leaving behind a 45-minute work print that he had smuggled out of France. John Huston starred as a temperamental film director battling with Hollywood executives to finish a movie –much like Welles did throughout his career. Susan Strasberg, Lilli Palmer, Dennis Hopper and Peter Bogdanovich played supporting roles.

To obtain the rights, Royal Road has negotiated agreements with Welles’s collaborator, Oja Kodar; his daughter and sole heir, Beatrice Welles; and Iranian-French production company, L’Astrophore. Welles had financed through a combination of TV roles and investors, including Mehdi Bushehri, brother-in-law of the shah of Iran and an investor in L’Astrophore.

As a result of clashing with Welles, Bushehri took control of more than 1,000 negative reels, which have been stored in a Paris warehouse.

Since Welles’ death, a multitude of efforts have been made to sort out the legal issues in order to complete. Two years ago, veteran producer Frank Marshall, who was a line producer on “The Other Side of the Wind,” joined with Royal Road’s Filip Jan Rymsza to approach Beatrice Welles and Oja Kodar.

Beatrice Welles, who manages the Welles estate, told the Times that the 2012 visit was key to starting the process of getting the film finished. Marshall and Bogdanovich will assemble the film.

“We have notes from Orson Welles,” Marshall told the Times. “We have scenes that weren’t quite finished, and we need to add music. We will get it done. The good news is that it won’t take so long because of all of the technology today.”

Netflix has posted a November 2 drop date for streaming Orson Welles’ long-awaited The Other Side of the Wind and the Morgan Neville companion documentary They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead.

The films will be available to 125 million subscribers in 190 counties.

The news comes the same day as the Venice Film Festival announced the two movies will have their world premieres at the August 29 – September 8 fest. (Screening dates have not yet been announced.)

Theatrical plans were not revealed, but the November 2 streaming date was posted on Netflix’s press website, along with the following descriptions of the films.

THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND

In 1970, legendary director Orson Welles (Citizen Kane) began filming what would ultimately be his final cinematic opus with a cast of luminaries that included John Huston, Peter Bogdanovich, Susan Strasberg and Welles’s partner during his later years, Oja Kodar. Beset by financial issues, the production ultimately stretched to 1976 and soon gained industry-wide notoriety, never to be completed or released. More than a thousand reels of film languished in a Paris vault until March 2017, when producers Frank Marshall (who served as a production manager on Wind during in its initial shooting) and Filip Jan Rymsza spearheaded efforts to have Welles’s vision completed more than 30 years after his death.

Featuring a new score by Oscar-winning composer Michel Legrand (The Umbrellas of Cherbourg) and assembled by a technical team including Oscar-winning editor Bob Murawski (The Hurt Locker), The Other Side of the Wind tells the story of famed filmmaker J.J. “Jake” Hannaford (Huston), who returns to Hollywood after years in self-exile in Europe with plans to complete work on his own innovative comeback movie. A satire of the classic studio system as well as the new establishment who were shaking things up at the time, Welles’s final film is both a fascinating time capsule of a now-distant era in moviemaking as well as the long-awaited “new” work from an indisputable master of his craft.

THEY’LL LOVE ME WHEN I’M DEAD

Oscar-winning director Morgan Neville (20 Feet from Stardom) tells the provocative story of legendary director Orson Welles during the final 15 years of his life. No longer the “wonder boy” of Citizen Kane, Welles in 1970 was an artist in exile looking for his Hollywood comeback with a project called The Other Side of the Wind. For years, Welles worked on the film about an aging film director trying to finish his last great movie. Welles shot the picture guerrilla-style in chaotic circumstances with a devoted crew of young dreamers, all the while struggling with financiers and fate. In 1985, Welles died, leaving as his final testament the most famous unfinished film in movie history. The negative stayed in a vault for decades until now. With revelatory new insights from Welles collaborators including Peter Bogdanovich, Frank Marshall, Oja Kodar and daughter Beatrice Welles, They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead is the untold final chapter of one of the greatest careers in film history: brilliant, innovative, defiant and unbowed.

The completion of the legendary unfinished film was spearheaded by producers Filip Jan Rymsza, who spent years brokering complex deals with rights holders, and Frank Marshall, Welles’ line producer on the 1970s shoot. Peter Bogdanovich, who was tasked by Welles to finish the movie in the event of his death, served as an executive producer.