Gareth Evans’ wall-to-wall actioner The Raid dominated talk at the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival’s Midnight Madness program. Plans for an American remake immediately were set in motion, but those of us who missed Evans’ original thriller (raises hand, sadly) are more interested in seeing the first film before catching a U.S. adaptation.

Good news. Sony Pictures Classics is gearing up to distribute The Raid, and might even bring the TIFF smash to the Sundance Film Festival in January, according to Deadline. The site says rap-metal rockers Linkin Park are writing a new score for Evans’ film, which follows a team of hard-hitting SWAT members into a drug kingpin’s lair, only to find out they’ve been ambushed and now must fight their way out of a criminal-infested claptrap. They also confirm that SPC honchos Tom Bernard and Michael Barker aim to release The Raid in U.S. theaters next spring.

All of which is ideal, because The Raid had incredible heat coming out of Toronto, and while that has cooled a bit, news that it could reach theaters in early 2012 could get genre fans heated up once again. And nobody (absolutely nobody!) wants to hear news about a developing U.S. remake for a film that we haven’t even seen yet. The same issue could be plaguing the planned American remake of Sleepless Night, another TIFF hit that has yet to reach our shores despite incredible success on the festival circuit. But for now, The Raid is coming, though in my humble opinion, not soon enough.