EXCLUSIVE: Amazon MGM Studios and Imagine Entertainment‘s Ron Howard directed true-life film Alone at Dawn will begin a platform release on December 25, 2027, before expanding on January 7 and getting a wide break over the MLK weekend, January 14-17.
Deadline first told you about the project. Oscar winner Anne Hathaway, 2x Oscar nominee Adam Driver and newly minted Emmy winner Betty Gilpin star in the feature take on Dan Schilling and Lori Longfritz’s book about Air Force combat controller John Chapman. Years after he fought to the death to save his fellow soldiers, an intelligence officer strives to prove his valor — leading an investigation that ultimately would secure the Medal of Honor for Chapman.
The year-end holiday corridor historically has been a strong launch window for prestige, adult-skewing action-dramas, including such films as American Sniper, Lone Survivor and 1917. We hear that Alone at Dawn is still being finished, and next Christmas is the prime time.
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Michael Russell Gunn adapted Schilling and Longfritz’s 2019 book. Producers are Imagine’s Brian Grazer, Howard, Jeb Brody and Allan Mandelbaum; Hideaway Entertainment’s Jonathan Gray, as well as Matthew Rhodes, Ron West, Kristy Grisham, William M. Connor and Patrick Newall. Thruline Entertainment is producing the action drama feature as well.
Amazon MGM Studios fired up the year with the first tentpole, that being the Ryan Gosling-starring Project Hail Mary, which grossed over $685M WW. It just had two world premieres at TIFF with Peter Farrelly’s I Play Rocky and Basam Tariq’s Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother to respective great reviews at 81% fresh and 100% fresh. I Play Rocky opens on Nov. 6, while Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother begins its platform on Sept. 25.
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Next year’s Christmas Day release schedule isn’t quite full yet. Currently there’s only Warner Bros’ Nancy Meyers-directed feature. The big event pics next year are Disney/Marvel Studio’s Avengers: Secret Wars, New Line’s The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum,and Lionsgate’s The Housemaid’s Secret on December 17, 2027.
Over MLK weekend there’s an untitled Disney movie, Paramount’s Longlegs sequel, and an untitled Universal event feature.