Winslet’s The Reader Can’t Seem to Book a Checkout Date

Kate Winslet should plan to attend plenty of awards ceremonies in the next year. 

Choosing a release date for a movie has lately taken on the complexity of planning the D-Day invasion. Witness what happened when Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince shifted from November 2008 to July 2009: about 500 other movies had their schedules changed too.

So now with all the delicacy about wanting to avoid competition, wanting to get the best box office, trying to make awards deadline, toss in producers disagreeing and watch more chaos break loose. As previously reported, early screening positive buzz for The Reader, starring Kate Winslet and Ralph Fiennes, was prompting The Weinstein Company to consider moving its release from 2009 to the end of 2008. Unfortunately, now, according to The Hollywood Reporter, Scott Rudin, one of the other producers doesn’t like the idea, mostly because he already has other Oscar bait pix opening–Doubt, starring Meryl Streep, and Revolutionary Road, also with Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio. Rudin doesn’t want to compete against himself (and Winslet might not want to compete against herself).

It’s not like The Weinstein Co. desperately needs another Oscar caliber pic, either. They have the currently playing Vicky Cristina Barcelona, and the upcoming The Road and Shanghai. But The Reader was produced by the recently deceased Anthony Minghella and Sydney Pollack, and apparently Harvey Weinstein, who had worked closely with them, feels the fall is the right time for the release.

To further complicate matters, the film still needs some post-production work, but director Stephen Daldry is busy getting Billy Elliott: The Musical ready for its Broadway opening in November. Insiders say Weinstein has the edge, but Rudin may just luck out if the film is simply not ready.

This type of stuff fascinates me (and perhaps only me). I mean, really, should releasing a movie be this difficult? Again, I say it’s amazing how we’ve reduced the calendar so that it seems like there are basically only two brief windows for opening movies each year. And during the rest of the year, audiences suffer. It’s all a little crazy.