The Weinstein Company are doing some release date shuffling as the Oscar season begins to go into full gear.
As was expected following the news earlier this week that Julian Schnabel’s “Miral” was heading out of 2010, The Weinstein Company have confirmed that the film will get a limited release on March 25, 2011. With the film getting a lukewarm response from critics at both Venice and TIFF, any chances of awards season hope the film might have had are non-existent now so no surprise that the studio isn’t going to throw money after it. Word was that Schnabel continued to tinker with the film after it unspooled in Venice so don’t be surprised if he continues to fine tune it before it hits theaters.
Meanwhile, “The Company Men” has been pushed from its previously scheduled October 22nd release date right into the heart of awards season prestige and blockbuster territory, hitting theaters on December 10th. The downsizing drama starring Ben Affleck, Tommy Lee Jones, Chris Cooper, Kevin Costner and Maria Bello was directed by John Wells, premiered at Sundance, was picked up by The Weinstein Company and then sort of forgotten about. Well, TWC will have time to get it back on everyone’s radar with a couple more months to get some marketing out there and certainly, they’ll be piggybacking off what is sure to be a Warner Bros. Oscar campaign for “The Town.”
No word yet on the fate of “Blue Valentine,” recently tagged with a ludicrous NC-17 rating. Things have been surprisingly quiet from the TWC camp which leads us to believe Derek Cianfrance is quietly re-cutting/submitting the film (note: he’s been shaving the running time down since Sundance; it was ten minutes shorter at Cannes and few more minutes shorter at TIFF) and/or they are going through the appeals process quietly. When the studio went public with their outcry regarding the R-rating for “The Tillman Story” earlier this year, it didn’t seem to make much difference.
