Scorsese’s Shutter Island Bumped to Feb. 2010

Published by Jeff Leins on: August 21st, 2009

Shocking news today as Paramount announced they were pushing Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island from this October to February 19, 2010.  This removes the Leonardo DiCaprio movie from awards consideration (for this year, any way) and into a slot usually considered the dumping grounds of studios who lose confidence in a property.

Nikki Finke, who broke the news this morning, says it was purely a business decision by a studio struggling to find financing to market the film.  It would cost Paramount around $50-60 million to release it into the busy fall schedule and the cash flow simply isn’t there.

Paramount CEO Brad Grey made a statement essentially saying because they’ve had such a good year they can afford to push the film and worry about paying for it later.  (You can check Finke’s post for the official PR verbage.)  “This is a situation facing every studio,” Grey said.  Indeed.  The shift is very similar to Universal shoving The Wolfman back to February 2010.  Both have trailers out to audiences already.  (See Shutter Island’s trailer here.)

Another source told her “that’s when Silence of the Lambs came out” back in 1991.  That’s how you want to make your decisions.  The release date of an 18 year old film.  The only way they’re remotely related is that film was the rare exception; an early release managing to win Oscar(s) many months later.  With the Academy expanding the “Best Picture” to 10 nominees, they’re pretending Shutter Island has a shot at the statue.  I’m inclined to believe if Paramount thought an Oscar was possible they wouldn’t be dropping it in February to begin with.

As the Risky Business Blog pointed out, Paramount bumped The Soloist and Defiance last year, which freed up things for their Curious Case of Benjamin Button to make a run.  They could be looking to do the same with Peter Jackson’s Lovely Bones and Jason Reitman’s Up in the Air.  If you’re into that kind of thing, Oscar betting just got a little more interesting.

Fox Searchlight swiftly shuffled Drew Barrymore’s directorial debut Whip It into Scorsese’s old weekend.  It will now open on October 2, 2009.

The move also resembles Warner Bros’ decision to push Harry Potter to this summer, though the circumstances were quite a bit different.  WB was riding high on Batman dollars and a summer bow ended up being the right call for a record-breaking opening.  Snatching up Potter’s old place was Twilight, which became a major hit.