In just two days Fox Searchlight has certainly improved their awards slate adding Wes Anderson‘s The Grand Budapest Hotel and Steve McQueen‘s Twelve Years a Slave to their upcoming slate of films, though Anderson’s film isn’t assured a 2013 release.
That said, they have set a December 27, 2013 release for McQueen’s film, which is also a film many (including myself) are hoping is added to the 2013 Cannes Film Festival slate, though with a December release that doesn’t seem nearly as likely as it did a few weeks ago when I was receiving reports from early test screenings.
Twelve Years a Slave features a massive cast including Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Fassbender, Paul Dano, Benedict Cumberbatch, Lupita Nyong’o, Paul Giamatti, Garret Dillahunt, Sarah Paulson, Scoot McNairy, Ruth Negga, Alfre Woodard and Michael Kenneth Williams and is based on the 1853 autobiography of Solomon Northrup (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and tells the story of Northrup’s tragic kidnapping in Washington DC in 1841 where, despite being born a free man, he was forced into slavery at a Louisiana cotton plantation until his rescue 12 years later.
In addition to this news, Screen Daily delivers the first synopsis for Grand Budapest Hotel:
The Grand Budapest Hotel tells of a legendary concierge at a famous European hotel between the wars and his friendship with a young employee who becomes his trusted protégé. The story involves the theft and recovery of a priceless Renaissance painting, the battle for an enormous family fortune and the slow and then sudden upheavals that transformed Europe during the first half of the 20th century.
The film also features a massive ensemble, many Anderson regulars, including Owen Wilson, Bill Murray, Adrien Brody, Tilda Swinton, Ralph Fiennes, Edward Norton, Jude Law, Harvey Keitel, Jason Schwartzman, Willem Dafoe, Jeff Goldblum, Saoirse Ronan, Mathieu Amalric, F. Murray Abraham and Bob Balaban.
Budapest Hotel is currently filming so a late 2013 release date isn’t entirely out of the question, and it may depend on how well the rest of Fox Searchlight’s slate stacks up for the rest of the year.
Certainly Twelve Years a Slave will be a contender for multiple awards as I noted in my 40 film Oscar preview, but the studio’s only other real contender is the upcoming release of The Way, Way Back, which they acquired at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. The film, from the Oscar-winning screenwriters of The Descendants Nat Faxon and Jim Rash, is set to hit theaters on July 5.
Of course, Searchlight still has Cannes, Venice and Toronto to find some additional films for their end of the year slate as it would be hard to imagine an Oscar year with such a limited involvement.
