Two big awards contenders – Hard Truths and Saturday Night – are getting 2024 releases in America, 2025 releases in the UK.
It’s something of an exception to the norm – and has been for some time – for the UK release of a film to lag significantly behind its US debut. Sure, for independent movies that struggle for distribution it’s more common, but in the case of two expected major awards contenders, it’s an eyebrow-raiser to see it happen in 2024. And, effectively, 2025.
Yet here we are.
At the end of this month, Sony will launch Jason Reitman’s already well received Saturday Night into US cinemas. This is the story of Saturday Night Live’s debut broadcast, described as something of a Birdman-like approach to the story.
Sony has the film in both the UK and the US. Yet we now learn there’s going to be a four-month gap between the release in America and the release over here. Saturday Night currently has a UK release date of 31st January 2025 over here.
Even more surprisingly, the British film Hard Truths is in the same boat. This is Mike Leigh’s first new movie since Peterloo back in 2018, and it debuted recently at film festivals, again to strong notices.
The US release of Hard Truths has been confirmed as 6th December 2024. Surprisingly again, the UK release isn’t until 31st January as well.
The tactics are traditional ones. Both Sony and Hard Truth’s UK distributor Studiocanal will be hoping that the respective films have earned enough awards momentum to give the two features a springboard for their UK bows. But still, this is an exception to the modern norm tactic really, especially when one of the films is a British one.
On the bright side, both are getting a proper cinema release, and both look to be really interesting movies. It just feels like a throwback to the days when you could import a film on DVD from America before it’d got even close to a UK cinema screen…
