'Nine' Officially Moves To December 18, Goes Wide Dec 25

As predicted (and suggested by the trades) the Weinstein Company has moved the release of their musical feature-film, “Nine.” The original release date for the Rob Marshall-directed picture was slotted for November 25 earlier this year, but then another TWC film, “The Road,” was saddled with bad buzz after the Venice Film Festival and then also bumped to November 25.

Not wanting to have releases in competition with each other the same weekend (although the audience is completely different and “The Road” is starting in wide release) pundits assumed that TWC would eventually move “Nine,” ostensibly a big Oscar candidate, to deeper into 2009 and Rope Of Silicon now confirms that the film has indeed moved and has now been scheduled for a limited release on December 18 in New York and Los Angeles and will then go wide on December 25.

Cause for Alarm? Not really and or not at all. ‘Benjamin Button’ went wide December 25 last year and look how many nominations that thing earned. An adaptation of a Broadway musical inspired by Fellini’s8 1/2,” the star-studded film features Daniel Day-Lewis as a film director haunted by the women in his life — Marion Cotillard, Penelope Cruz, Judi Dench, Fergie, Kate Hudson, Nicole Kidman, and Sophia Loren — ranging from mistress to deceased mother. To bait Oscar just a bit more, the film is the last one scripted by deceased and beloved Hollywood filmmaker Anthony Minghella (who co-wrote with Michael Tolkin).

It’s hard to tell who the female lead of this thing will be and or which one will be in contention for Oscars, but some seem to think Marion Cotillard is the one. And she’s great so this is not a bad choice at all. Plus hopefully Penelope Cruz might earn herself a nomination based on Pedro Almodovar’s “Broken Embraces,” not a perfect film, but in retrospect (we saw it in Cannes), still one of the better films we’ve seen this year. “Nine,” is definitely a thorn in the side for most Oscar bloggers because it’s really one of the main question marks. That along with “Amelia,” and “Invictus” (and to a lesser degree, “The Lovely Bones”).