"August: Osage County," the movie based on Tulsa native Tracy Letts'
prize-winning play and filmed in Oklahoma last year, will make its world
premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, which runs Sept.
5-15.
The star-studded film featuring Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts
leading an ensemble cast that also includes Ewan McGregor, Chris Cooper
and Abigail Breslin will have its gala presentation during the festival
that has in recent years become one of the leading launching pads for
motion pictures planning to campaign for Academy Awards consideration.
Some
had speculated that "August: Osage County" might skip the fall festival
circuit when the release date of the film was moved recently from early
November to Christmas Day. The Weinstein Company, the movie's
distributor, has clearly decided that the film is strong enough to keep
it in the minds of both audiences and Academy Award voters for several
months with this move.
This world premiere date will be more than three months before "August: Osage County" opens in theaters, and four months prior to Oscar nominations being announced.
Early speculation has centered on the film as a
potential best picture candidate and Meryl Streep as a best actress
nominee in the role of the Weston family matriarch in this story of a
Pawhuska-area brood coming together at the Osage County residence when there
is a death in the family.
But along with the potential for supporting-actor nominations for stars like Roberts, Margo Martindale
and Benedict Cumberbatch, there is the potential for a nomination for
Letts as well: The Tulsan who won both a Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award
for his play adapted the screenplay for the movie and could see notice
in that category.
"August: Osage County" was filmed largely inside a residence that the production company purchased in far northern Osage County. Filming also took place in Pawhuska, Barnsdall and Bartlesville.
The producers of "August: Osage County," George Clooney and Grant Heslov, won Academy Awards earlier this year for producing the best picture-winning "Argo" and are clearly hoping to repeat at the next Oscars.
The film's cast also includes Dermot Mulroney, Sam Shepard, Juliette Lewis, Julianne Nicholson and Misty Upham.
Among other films receiving world premieres in Toronto during the festival include Oklahoma native Ron Howard's Formula One-racing movie "Rush," starring Chris Hemsworth and Daniel Bruhl; "Labor Day," starring Kate Winslet and directed by Jason Reitman ("Up in the Air"); and "Railway Man," a World War II drama starring Colin Firth and Nicole Kidman, both Oscar winners.
The Weinstein Company, which began the Oscar campaign at last year's Toronto festival for "The Silver Linings Playbook," will premiere at this festival another of its holiday-season pictures: "Long Walk to Freedom," a Nelson Mandela biopic starring Idris Elba and opening Nov. 29 in theaters.
World Scene Writer Rita Sherrow contributed to this report.
Movies
The build-up to the world premiere of "August: Osage County" was familiar to Tracy Letts, the playwright who penned the Pulitzer Prize-winning play and wrote the screenplay for its big-screen adaptation. Formal wear, a limo, a ride to the theater. But such a night would usually culminate for him in the debut of a play and, he says, "the thrum of live performance."
So the story goes something like this: Jeanne Tripplehorn started out hot in Tulsa, becoming the youngest rock music DJ in the country, then having not one but two local TV shows by the age of 20, all before hustling her way out of town as fast as possible, off to Hollywood and never to return.
