The 2013 Oscar race is still a long ways away, but it’s starting to take shape. 12 Years A Slave, the new film from director Steve McQueen, is widely expected to compete for some awards and will hitting theaters in October instead of December.
Deadline confirmed that distributor Fox Searchlight and producers New Regency and River Road will begin the film’s limited run on Oct. 18, slowly rolling the film out throughout the fall. The original plan was to not start the platform release until Dec. 27, just so it would be eligible for the 2013 Oscars race. But test screenings have been popular with audiences, so the studios decided that it would be a bigger hit in the fall than the winter.
12 Years a Slave focuses on Solomon Northup (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a free black man from New York who is abducted and sold into slavery. During his 12 years as a slave, he meets cruelty and surprising kindness. The rest of the cast includes Brad Pitt, Michael Fassbender, Quvenzhané Wallis, Paul Dano, Paul Giamatti, and Lupita Nyong’o. John Ridley wrote the script.
“It was the Anne Frank story of America of that time,” McQueen told USA Today earlier this month about the true life story. “It's the situation and the detail of Solomon's recollection of those events that ingrained itself in my brain, and the humanity of everyone involved.”
“He goes through an extraordinary ordeal, a very painful, brutal experience, and found a kind of redemption on the other side of it,” Ejiofor added.
McQueen’s previous films include Hunger and Shame, which both starred Fassbender.