Soloist pushed to 09

When the project was first announced many critics (me included) called the film shameless Oscar bait. Robert Downey, Jr. as a struggling reporter who helps a schizophrenic homeless man (Jamie Foxx) realize his dream of playing violin with an orchestra. Now if that’s not screaming Oscar, I don’t know what is. But THE SOLOIST will scream Oscar no longer. The DreamWorks film is being moved to March 13th about three weeks after the Oscars air on February 22nd. The issue seemed to stem from the fact that Paramount, releasing SOLOIST, already has a number of high-profile Oscar pics in December (BENJAMIN BUTTON and REVOLUTIONARY ROAD among them) and moving THE SOLOIST would free things up a bit. There’s also speculation that the move has less to do with awards and more to do with earnings in that quarter of ’09. The studio is also pushing back another film, the Daniel Craig WWII drama DEFIANCE, out of mid-December but will still allow it an Oscar qualifying run on December 31st (it won’t open wide until January 16th).