While the 2021 release calendar is very much up in the air, with big movies still shifting endlessly amongst the uncertainty of the still-very-terrible pandemic, Searchlight today announced the theatrical release dates of several high profile and hugely eagerly titles. Whether or not they’ll make these dates is anybody’s guess, but for now, this is what we’ve got.
First up, on July 16,The Night Houseis scheduled to debut. Directed byDavid Bruckner(whose 2017 movieThe Ritualis on Netflix and is very awesome) and featuring a cast that includesRebecca Hall,Sarah Goldberg,Evan Jonigkeit,Stacy MartinandVondie Curtis Hall, it “follows a widow (Hall) who begins to uncover her recently deceased husband’s disturbing secrets.” Sounds like it’s going to give us the summer scaries (and we are very much here for that).
Next up isThe Eyes of Tammy Fayeon September 24. Based on the 2000 documentary of the same name, this fictionalized account promises “an intimate look at the extraordinary rise, fall and redemption of televangelistTammy Faye Bakker.”Jessica Chastainstars as Tammy Faye Bakker andAndrew GarfieldisJim Bakker. The narrative feature, directed byThe Big Sick’sMichael Showalter, has a starry cast that also includesCherry Jones,Fredric Lehne,Mark Wystrach,Sam Jaeger,Gabriel OldsandVincent D’Onofrio. The official synopsis reads: “In the 1970s and 80s, Tammy Faye and her husband, Jim Bakker, rose from humble beginnings to create the world’s largest religious broadcasting network and theme park, and were revered for their message of love, acceptance and prosperity. Tammy Faye was legendary for her indelible eyelashes, her idiosyncratic singing, and her eagerness to embrace people from all walks of life. However, it wasn’t long before financial improprieties, scheming rivals, and scandal toppled their carefully constructed empire.”
After a number of delays and missed release dates,Antlersfinally gets a perfect, Halloween-adjacent spot on October 29. The film, directed byScott Cooperand produced byGuillermo del Toro, starsKeri Russell,Jesse Plemons,Jeremy T. Thomas,Graham Greene,Scott Haze,Rory Cochrane, andAmy Madigan.The official synopsis for the incredibly creepy-looking movie follows: “In an isolated Oregon town, a middle-school teacher (Russell) and her sheriff brother (Plemons) become embroiled with her enigmatic student (Thomas) whose dark secrets lead to terrifying encounters with a legendary ancestral creature who came before them.”
And del Toro’sNightmare Alley, one of our most anticipated movies of 2021 arrives on December 3. This is the first movie that del Toro has directed since winning the Best Director and Best Picture Oscars for his 2017 masterpieceThe Shape of Water. Based on the 1946 novel of the same name byWilliam Lindsay Gresham(previously adapted into a 1947 movie starringTyrone Power), this new version comes equipped with a ridiculously stacked cast that includesBradley Cooper,Cate Blanchett,Toni Collette,Willem Dafoe,Richard Jenkins,Rooney Mara, del Toro mainstayRon Perlman,Mary Steenburgen, andDavid Strathairn. And as for the plot for Nightmare Alley, well it concerns “an ambitious young carny (Cooper) with a talent for manipulating people with a few well-chosen words hooks up with a female psychiatrist (Blanchett) who is even more dangerous than he is.” We couldn’t be more pumped if we tried.
Hopefully we’ll all be vaccinated by July so we can start to see all of these wonderful-sounding films. It’s also worth noting that one of Searchlight’s biggest 2021 movies,Wes Anderson’sThe French Dispatch, is so far without a release date. Speculation is that it has to do with a supposed Cannes rollout (it was supposed to debut at this festival in 2020) but those plans are still very much up in the air.
