While movies and music are being moved around at a feverish rate due to the ongoing pandemic, the Aretha Franklin biopic ‘Respect’ is shifting for reasons much more positive.
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Deadline reports that the film – which sees Jennifer Hudson star in the lead role – has been lifted from its original October 9th debut.
Instead, it’ll head to theaters for a limited run on Christmas Day (December 25th).
Thereafter, the MGM production will expand to more screens on January 8th and eventually land in cinemas everywhere officially on January 15th. The latter of which is Martin Luther King weekend.
So why the move?
Word is that it’s designed to place the film in the thick of 2021 award season.
Typically, studios schedule their major contenders to premiere in the Autumn frame, but it’s also common-practice to target the holidays and after so as to be fresh to the various panels. A play that has yielded positive results for the likes of ‘Hidden Figures’ and 1917.’
Conversely, ‘CATS’ – which tried the same – came out at the opposite end.
Yet, multiple sources close to production have praised the work on ‘Respect’ and its buzz within critic circles is growing in earnest.
Time will tell if it delivers!
Directed by Liesl Tommy, ‘Respect’ also stars Forest Whitaker as C.L. Franklin, Marlon Wayans as Ted White, Mary J. Blige as Dinah Washington, and Tituss Burgess as Rev. Dr. James Cleveland.
We’re all sorts of buzzed! Are you?!