EXCLUSIVE: After a successful world premiere at Telluride and opening night at the New York Film Festival, and with Rotten Tomatoes critical reviews at 80% fresh, Amazon MGM Studios is taking Orion/Plan B’s Nickel Boys to screens later in December.
Originally the RaMell Ross-directed and co-written feature based on Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel was scheduled to go October 25 in New York City and November 1 in Los Angeles. Now Nickel Boys will debut December 13 in NYC and December 20 in LA.
That’s a platform launch similar to Amazon MGM’s Oscar-nominated American Fiction, which opened last year on December 15, ultimately making $21 million stateside. In addition, A24’s The Zone of Interest had a mid-December launch and expanded throughout January off the heat of several awards and noms.
The release-date move gives Nickel Boys ample ways to be discovered not only during awards season but also by moviegoers. The specialty space in November is quite busy already with A24’s Queer and Warner Bros’ Juror #2.
In addition, Amazon MGM is making 35mm prints of the film that will unspool for the December release dates.
Nickel Boys chronicles the powerful friendship between two young Black teenagers navigating the harrowing trials of reform school together in Florida. In the movie, a bright, striving teenager navigates the terrors of Jim Crow South and makes a split-decision that recasts the course of his life. On the cusp of college, he’s instead sentenced to time at a notorious reformatory. There he encounters a kindred spirit, forming an alliance, but one with incalculable consequences.
Ethan Herisse, Brandon Wilson, Hamish Linklater, Fred Hechinger, Daveed Diggs and Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor star.
Joslyn Barnes co-wrote the PG-13 feature, which is produced by Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, David Levine and Barnes. Executive producers are Brad Pitt, Gabby Shepard, Emily Wolfe, Kenneth Yu and Chadwick Prichard. Alex Somers and Scott Alario wrote the original score.