It's release date madness today. You've got the cynical nostalgia cash-grab of "Jurassic Park" (which is coming out next summer in a 3D re-release, ca'ching!), you've got a Tom Cruise sci-fi film from the director of "Tron: Legacy" ("Oblivion" which is now dated for spring 2013) and now we've got three more films that finally have release dates attached to them.
The first one coming later this year is the Sundance drama, "The Words," starring Bradley Cooper, Zoe Saldana, Dennis Quaid, Olivia Wilde, Ben Barnes and Jeremy Irons. It's now slated for a September 21st bow. You can read our interviews with Cooper, Quaid, Barnes and Saldana here, here, here, and here, and you can read our review on the film — which we were a bit lukewarm on, and called somewhat "emotionally distant" — here.
The most anticipated film of the lot for us is Martin McDonagh‘s black comedy follow-up to "In Bruges." Titled "Seven Psychopaths," and starring the pretty stellar cast of Colin Farrell, Woody Harrelson, Christopher Walken, Sam Rockwell, Abbie Cornish, Olga Kurylenko, Tom Waits, Kevin Corrigan and Gabourey Sidibe among others, this dark comedy centers on a screenwriter (Farrell) who gets caught up in his pal's dog-kidnapping plot, only to infuriate a psychotic vengeful mobster. CBS films (which is the studio behind all these films) has given it a promising, awards-friendly release date of November 2nd (you can see photos from the film here). While it's a little too early to tell if McDonagh's acidic comedies would ever be awards-worthy (could easily be too dark and twisted), this is still a very good sign.
Finally, written by the Coen Brothers and a remake of the 1966 film of the same name starring Shirley MacLaine and Michael Caine, Michael Hoffman‘s heist-comedy "Gambit," is set for the less than impressive date of January 11, 2013. Starring Colin Firth and Cameron Diaz, plus Stanley Tucci, Alan Rickman, Cloris Leachman and more, perhaps what this really needed was the Coen Brothers themselves. [Box Office Mojo]