As expected, movie fans in New York and Los Angeles are getting a slew of cinematic presents for Christmas. Sure, there are juggernauts such as “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story,” “Passengers” and “Assassin’s Creed” looking to rake up blockbuster grosses, but it’s the limited releases living off the awards season publicity game that will be hoping to make an impression with Academy and guild members. And today A24 revealed there’s one more contender joining the end of year shuffle, Mike Mills‘ “2oth Century Women.”
Premiering at the 2016 New York Film Festival on Sat. October 8, Mills’ first movie since 2010’s “Beginners” centers on three women (Annette Bening, Greta Gerwig and Elle Fanning) who helped raise a young man (Lucas Jade Zumann) in late 1970’s Santa Barbara. Bening has already been pegged as a Best Actress contender for her performance and Gerwig and Fanning are expected to be potential Supporting Actress players. The Annapurna Pictures financed flick will open on Dec. 25 in New York and Los Angeles before expanding nationwide on Jan 20. The wide date assures ‘Women’ will be in theaters across the country four days before the Academy Award nominations are revealed on Jan. 24.
READ MORE: Meet Mike Mills’ ’20th Century Women’ In First Trailer
Other contenders opening in limited release around the Christmas holidays include “A Monster Calls” (Dec. 23), “Hidden Figures” (Dec. 25), “Patriots Day” (Dec. 25), “Toni Erdmann” (Dec. 25) and “Silence,” which announced its Dec. 23 release earlier today. “Fences” and “Gold” both go wide on Christmas Day. Complicating matters even more is that Ben Affleck‘s “Argo” follow up “Live by Night” is “expected” to arrive around this time for an Oscar qualifying release before going wide on Jan. 13. (Oh, and did we mention “La La Land” will have only expanded nationwide less than 10 days before?)
It’s worth noting that that’s a ton of specialty releases in a very short time frame. And, yes, it’s a time of year when the box office audience expands, but with per screen averages meaning so much to theater owners before January expansions one or two of these contenders are gonna get hurt (like, call an ambulance hurt). Strangely, this year is sort of a flip to the past few Oscar seasons when contenders did everything possible to open at least in limited release during the months of October or November. As we often do, we’ll remind everyone there hasn’t been a Best Picture winner that arrived in theaters in December since “Million Dollar Baby” almost 12 years ago. Consultants and studios are well aware of this fact. You need to win Oscars during phase one of the campaign. Even with screeners getting a late start can kill your shot at actually winning the big prize. This year frontrunner “La La Land” and serious contenders “Silence” and “Fences” are playing with fire hoping the long standing trend reverses itself.
We’ll see.
For more awards season and movie industry insight follow Gregory Ellwood on twitter @TheGregoryE.