Earlier this year, Warner Bros. made a very interesting move on their release calendar, sliding Ben Affleck‘s Prohibition-era drama “Live By Night” up from a previously planned October 20, 2017 release date to January 13, 2017. The new slot was more or less where “American Sniper” did gangbusters numbers for the studio a couple years back, and many couldn’t help but notice that the new date was in spitting distance of the awards season. And while WB hasn’t yet officially confirmed an Oscar qualifying run in December, it sure seems like it’s going to happen.
Chatting with WWD, the film’s co-star Elle Fanning let it slip that “Live By Night” would be arriving before the end of 2016. “That’s coming out in December, at the end of this year. That was incredible because [Ben] wrote it, he directed it and he’s in it. I had scenes with the director, you know? It’s intimidating. But I would love to direct, so it was cool to see how he works,” she said.
Also featuring Zoe Saldana, Sienna Miller, Brendan Gleeson and Chris Cooper, and based on the novel by Dennis Lehane, “Live By Night” centers on Joe Coughlin, the son of a cop who finds himself slipping into a life of organized crime. As he climbs the ladder of the underworld, he journeys from Tampa to Cuba, encounters various dames, lowlifes and more in a tale of revenge and redemption.
So, it looks like this fall will be all the Affleck you can handle, with the actor also appearing in “The Accountant” opening on October 14th. And if “Live By Night” is indeed coming in December, I would wager that AFI Fest premiere — just like “American Sniper” — would be a pretty good bet to take.
