Oh Great, Now We’re Going To Have To Wait Even Longer For ‘Tinker Tailor Solider Spy’

But At Least We Can Listen To The Score To Tide Us Over

Is there any film this fall bigger than “Tinker Tailor Solider Spy“? Awards talk is already growing around Gary Oldman and with the film set to premiere in Venice in just a matter of days, the buzz is only going to get louder for the film is going to be a major player at the Oscars. While those in the U.K. will be lucky to enough to see the film when it opens on September 16th, Focus Features is testing the patience of those of us stateside as they’ve pushed back the date from the planned November 18th release date three more weeks to December 9th. The eagle eyed RopeOfSilicon noticed the date change that was confirmed by Pete Hammond over at Deadline in the midst of his latest awards season update.

The move is a bummer, but understandable. While November 18th gave the film a counter-programming slot against “Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 1” and “Happy Feet 2,” with Thanksgiving arriving the following weekend, it risked getting lost in the glut of movies arriving for the holiday. December 9th however, will find the film opening against “The Sitter” and “New Year’s Eve” once again giving adult audiences a quality option against those two decidedly lighter (and probably not so hot) films. Over at the arthouse, the Weinsteins‘ “W.E.” and Paramount‘s “Young Adult” will be battling it out as they begin to platform.

So, we’ll continue to wait. But as a consolation prize of sorts, the full score for the film by Alberto Iglesias is now streaming over at the official page for the soundtrack. We’ve given it a quick scan and it’s a pretty beautiful piece of work, perfectly evoking the continental Euro intrigue the pic will bring, combined with a certainly old school flair that is not unlike something we would hear out of ’70s film. We’ll be leaving this one on the background as we work.

While “Tinker Tailor Solider Spy” will premiere at the Venice Film Festival we’re putting hard money down that when the Telluride slate is announced this weekend, this film will be right at the top of the list. As we noted this morning in our Oscar column, some studios are playing the waiting game rather than busting a nut early on their Oscar race by keeping their films out of them out of the festival gauntlet. Focus — whose only major horse so far this year is ‘Tinker’ — seems to be taking that approach and by releasing early across the pond, they’ll benefit from early hype that they’ll be able to carefully manage and build as they roll the movie out on this side of the ocean. But still, three and a half months? That’s gonna be a painful wait.