D Films marks its debut release Friday with Creation, which opens four months after the Toronto-based outfit was launched by industry veterans Jim Sherry and Tony Cianciotta.

The company says stepping out with the British-made bio of Charles Darwin fits its strategy to deliver ‘provocative and relevant’ motion pictures. D Films picked up Creation just days before it opened the Toronto International Film Festival — the first non-Canadian film to do so in at least a decade.

Director Jon Amiel’s story, about Darwin’s struggle between science and God as he refines his theory of evolution, rolls out on 18 screens in cities including Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Ottawa and Halifax, and will expand to smaller markets in its second week. It stars husband-and-wife actors Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connelly.

The distributor is also prepping for the March release of its second acquisition, the World War Two-set Max Manus, Norway’s domestic hit that was also its entry for best foreign-language film at the Academy Awards.

Meanwhile, Creation also opens in five U.S. cities including New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles on Friday through indie distributor Newmarket Films, best known for releasing The Passion of the Christ.

Countering Creation is Alliance Films’ drama Extraordinary Measures, featuring Harrison Ford and Brendan Fraser, on 185 screens. It follows the unusual alliance between a scientist and a father, as one seeks to develop a life-saving drug for the other’s children.

Also opening on Friday:

• The award-winning historical drama The Last Station, which recounts the last year in the life of Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy, bows on two screens in Toronto via Mongrel Media, followed by Vancouver on Jan. 29. It stars Christopher Plummer with Helen Mirren and Paul Giamatti.

• Mongrel also has Peter Mettler’s documentary Petropolis, about Alberta’s tar sands, playing at Toronto’s Royal theater.

• Major Hollywood releases for the week include Columbia’s supernatural thriller Legion, on 2,400 screens in North America, and Fox’s comedy Tooth Fairy, starring Dwayne Johnson, on a reported 3,000 screens.