POOR THINGS (2023): Yorgos Lanthimos’s Oscar Bait Movie Shifts its Release Date to Awards Season

Emma Stone Movie Sets its Eye on December Release Date

The latest collaboration between Emma Stone and director, Yorgos Lanthimos, is called Poor Things and it seems to want to avoid a “poor” fate at the box-office.

The new Yorgos Lanthimos film, Poor Things, was all set to premiere at the Venice International Film Festival (which kicks off late next month) and follow suit with a theatrical release date of September 8th. While the movie is still going to play at the festival, it won’t be seen by general audiences so quickly. The film’s distributor, Searchlight, has postponed the movie’s release until December 8th positioning the movie as an Oscar front runner with Emma Stone all but certain to get an Oscar nomination for the film under the studio’s new release strategy.

The SAG-AFTRA strike is most likely the main reason Searchlight has delayed their high-profile movie but let’s face it, Oscar voters tend to really remember movies released in December a lot more than they do movies released right after Labor Day. Poor Things was originally slated for that potentially dangerous September 8th opening. Mark Ruffalo and Willem Dafoe co-star in the movie and that makes it a movie with “Oscar potential” written all over it. Yorgos Lanthimos’s 2018 Best Picture nominee, The Favourite, secured Lanthimos and Stone Academy Award nods. It could all happen again next year.

It was going to be Lady Gaga’s year to win an Oscar for Best Actress (for A Star is Born) the year that The Favourite came out. Gaga seemed to pretty much have it in the bag. Then, out of nowhere, Olivia Colman came along and stole the award right out from under Gaga for Colman’s work in the movie much-adored-by-critics The Favourite. Industry insiders are expecting Stone to secure an Oscar nomination for her part in Poor Things considering the many layers of the role Stone will take on in the upcoming movie. Poor Things is about Stone’s character, Bella Baxter who is a scientist (Dafoe)’s creation a la Frankenstein. Ruffalo will portray a lawyer in the very offbeat film, adding even more star power to the mix.

Lanthimos is known for his unusual movies like 2009’s brilliant and harrowing, Dogtooth, and 2016’s quirky gem, The Lobster. Rachel Weisz appeared in both The Lobster and The Favourite and received an Academy Award nomination for the latter film. Emma Stone received a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nod for The Favourite as well. It is expected that Poor Things will be Lanthimos’s most mature work to date. Will the Academy come knocking on Lanthimos’s and Stone’s doors again with the new release date of December 8th as the unveiling time for Poor Things? Expect Poor Things to be one of the Academy’s “favourite” films of 2023 and to clean up at the specialty box-office this December.

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