Like American Sniper before it, Clint Eastwood’s Richard Jewell will get a gala premiere at the AFI Fest this November. Queen & Slim opens the fest on November 14, and The Banker closes it on November 21, but Clint Eastwood will be there too.
American Sniper announced its presence with authority by showing at the AFI fest and wowing the crowds and critics before making a boatload of money heading into the Oscar race.
This is the story of the wrongly accused security guard (Paul Walter Hauser) in the 1996 Olympic bombing case in Atlanta.
Richard Jewell opens December 13. Eastwood is 90 years old and directed over 30 films in his long and lauded career.
Given the subject matter, I think this may work well for Eastwood and so far I think it may get noms at Picture, Actor and Original Screenplay. But not confident it will go way beyond that.
Timeline :
June 24 – Filming commences.
October 3 – Awards qualifying December run is announced.
October 8 – AFI world premiere is announced.
Damn WB must be super confident they have a winner on their hands, I mean Eastwood is quick but going from Day 1 of shooting to an AFI world premiere announcement within 4 months has to be a new record.
I would not be the least bit surprised if the film ended up with nominations in picture, director, screenplay, actor.
And if relative unknown Hauser does make the cut, someone big will be probably snubbed in Best Actor, the trickiest category to predict this season..
Remember Peter Berg did a similar thing with Patriots Day. It was made pretty quickly as Deepwater Horizon came out the same year, and it too was given an AFI fest slot. And now we know it did nothing at the Oscars. I simply think Eastwood likes to move fast. Same as The Mule last year.