“Nickel Boys,” the acclaimed drama from director RaMell Ross based on a Colson Whitehead novel, is being pushed from its planned release in October to now open in a platform release late in the year in December.
Amazon MGM is rescheduling “Nickel Boys” from a release on October 25 in New York City and November 1 in Los Angeles to now open December 13 in NYC and December 20 in LA, an individual with knowledge of the shift told IndieWire. The film premiered at Telluride and was the opening night film for the New York Film Festival.
The change is significant for a serious Oscar front runner . But distributor Amazon MGM is thinking of another movie of its own that worked its way to some Oscar glory with the same exact approach: last year’s “American Fiction.”
That film too, directed and written by Cord Jefferson and starring Jeffrey Wright, opened in limited release on the same weekend, December 15 in New York, before expanding to Los Angeles and then wider into January, all after winning the Audience Award at TIFF and playing the fall festival circuit. It wound up winning an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay, but it also managed to gross $22.4 million worldwide before it ultimately wound up streaming on Amazon Prime Video.