One of the potential awards contenders that was noticeably absent from festival season, The Weinstein Company’s Grace of Monaco, starring Nicole Kidman as the actress-turned-princess, was thought to get a lot of attention for Kidman’s performance after a presentation of footage at the Cannes Film Festival. After all, the film’s director Olivier Dahan had already directed Marion Cotilard to an Oscar win for La Vie en Rose.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, The Weinstein Company has now decided to push the movie back until Spring 2014 to give the filmmaker more time to complete the movie with hopes of it being more of a commercial film rather than one merely going for awards.
The Weinstein Company already has a fairly full slate for the coming months with a number of contenders in the lead actress category that Kidman was originally expected to join. Besides having an acclaimed performance by Dame Judi Dench in Stephen Frears’ Philomena–which has yet to settle on a release date–The Weinstein Company are also releasing John Wells’ adaptation of Tracy Lett’s play August: Osage County, which has strong co-lead performances by Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts.
Moving Grace of Monaco doesn’t completely take Kidman out of the awards conversation as she could very well be in the mix for 2014, although releasing a movie earlier in the year certainly puts a lot more pressure on a movie/performance to be remembered by year’s end.
