Aw, cheer up Sad Chastain. It's not so bad. While New York City and Los Angeles will be graced with Kathryn Bigelow's "Zero Dark Thirty" as planned on December 19th, as recent reports suggested, the rest of America will have to wait until 2013.
Sony has confirmed that the movie will now go wide on January 11th, squaring off against Warner Bros "Gangster Squad" and Marlon Wayans' horror spoof "A Haunted House." While some have suggested the move might indicate a lack of confidence in the picture, we'd wager that's not the case. It's probably just a matter of getting it out of a crowded calendar while still allowing the NY/LA cinephile set to start the buzz. And frankly, Academy voters don't care when a movie is released as they see it at invitation-only screenings or will have a DVD copy shipped to their home. But, as always, the maneuvers continue.
Seeing an opening, Paramount has dropped their comedy "The Guilt Trip" with Seth Rogen and Barbra Streisand into the vacant wide-release slot, moving it ahead of its original Christmas Day release. The movie will now rub elbows with "This Is 40," "Jack Reacher" and "Monsters Inc. 3D," so we'll see how that battle plays out (and all of those movies will be trying to not get crushed by "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" in its second weekend). But it looks like a good counterprogramming move for those moms and aunts out there who are looking for something easy and, admittedly, pretty breezy and fun.
Adjust your movie-watching schedule accordingly, folks. [BoxOfficeMojo]