Paramount Pictures has decided Christmas will come a little early this year as they’ve moved the release date for the Coen brothers’ True Grit from Christmas Day to three days earlier for release on December 22.
Paramount has held their two major awards season Oscar contenders close to the chest. So far they’ve only screened David O. Russell’s The Fighter once, and just yesterday David Poland from Movie City News tweeted the first screening of True Grit is now scheduled for December 8, the very last day to qualify for the Golden Globe Awards.
Should we read anything into this other than the fact Paramount seems content to let the dust settle around other Oscar contenders such as The Social Network, 127 Hours and The King’s Speech after debuting Up in the Air last year to a tremendous response only to end up nominated for six Oscars and go home with none. In my opinion that’s exactly what’s going on here and there’s no comparison to be drawn from their last minute debut of Peter Jackson’s The Lovely Bones last year, which Paramount seemed to give up on both in terms of awards consideration and box-office. For anyone that saw that movie you can sort of understand why.
The Fighter will hit theaters first on December 10, so I’d expect more and more to come out on that film pretty quick, but how the studio intends to promote True Grit will be interesting. Some promotion will probably happen by default as star Jeff Bridges will begin promoting Tron Legacy in the next few weeks leading up to its December 17 release. In that sense Paramount will likely get a bit of free publicity seeing how Bridges will undoubtedly be asked about his turn as Rooster Cogburn, a role that won John Wayne his only acting Oscar back in 1970.
The response to the trailer was loud and the fact True Grit is a Coen feature only helps matters. Hopefully Paramount is holding a true gem as it will now face off with Country Strong, Gulliver’s Travels, Little Fockers and Somewhere on Wednesday the 22nd, leaving Sony Classics’s The Illusionist as the lone Christmas Day release. you tell me, of that selection, which one are you planning on seeing first?
