Fox Searchlight Moves Up Steve McQueen's '12 Years a Slave'

Fox Searchlight has shifted Steve McQueen’s much anticipated “12 Years a Slave” up over two months, Deadline is reporting. Originally slated for a Christmas bow, the film will now start a limited release on October 18th.

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The follow-up to British director McQueen’s “Shame,” the film stars Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Fassbender, Benedict Cumberbatch, Brad Pitt, Quvenzhané Wallis, Paul Dano, Sarah Paulson, Alfre Woodard, Paul Giamatti, and Lupita Nyong’o. It adapts Solomon Northup’s remarkable account of being kidnapped and sold

into slavery for a dozen years in the middle of the 19th century. It’s clearly one of Fox Searchlight’s biggest award season hopefuls.

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The switch comes on the heels of many other awards season hopefuls doing the same in the past weeks. Relativity’s “Out of the Furnace” moved from October 4th to November 27th; The Weinstein Company shifted “August: Osage County” from November 8th to Christmas Day and “Grace of Monaco” from December 27th to November 27th; Disney moved “Saving Mr. Banks” back a week from December 13th to December 25th; Fox shifted “The Counselor” from November 15th to October 15th.

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