The Oscar race for 2017 may be getting a new contender.

Oscar winning director Martin Scorsese says his “Silence” will be golden for an end of year release. “It depends on Paramount,” he told me last night at Tony Bennett’s 90th birthday party.

“Silence” is a passion project for the “Goodfellas” director. It stars Liam Neeson, Andrew Garfield, Ciaran Hinds and Adam Driver, based on a novel by Shûsaku Endô. The movie was so hard to put together it has 25 names listed as producers or executive producers.

“Silence” is described in Wikipedia as “a 1966 novel of historical fiction by Japanese author Shūsaku Endō. It is the story of a Jesuit missionary sent to 17th century Japan, who endures persecution in the time of Kakure Kirishitan (“Hidden Christians”) that followed the defeat of the Shimabara Rebellion.”

As for Paramount, they have “Silence” tentatively penciled in for November or December. But a firm date is still to come. Scorsese told me he’ll be done with scoring in October, and regular people will start to see the movie then.

So throw “Silence” into the ring with Birth of a Nation, Rules Don’t Apply, Queen of Katwe, Sully, The Founder, Fences, and a bunch of other films no one’s seen yet (like LaLa Land, and so on). Why not? So far in 2016, on August 4th, we otherwise have zilch in our checkout basket for the Academy Awards. Nothing like waiting til the last minute.