Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker received its first limited release on June 26, 2009. In the months following, the film and its helmer went on to win multiple prestigious awards, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay at the Academy Awards. And then...nothing. In the year-plus since taking home some of film's greatest prizes, Bigelow hasn't stepped foot back on a set. While the filmmaker has been busy developing projects, none have gotten past the pre-production stage. Now we finally know when Bigelow's follow-up will be arriving in theaters.

Deadline reports that untitled Bigelow film about SEAL Team Six - the team responsible for killing Osama Bin Laden - has been given an official release date of October 12, 2012. The film is being produced by Sony, which is reapplying the release strategy used for The Social Network last year. Scripted by Mark Boal, the Oscar-winning writer behind The Hurt Locker, the project was actually in development before the death of Bin Laden on May 6, but was fast tracked when the movie's subjects became national heroes and the third act was re-written with the happy ending. There are currently no other films scheduled for the October 12 weekend next year, but it will be following Tim Burton's animated Frankenweenie and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3D, both of which are being released on October 5.

What's so interesting about this project is that the original drafts were about the futile attempts to find the criminal mastermind and was going to end without the team finding Bin Laden. I'm curious how the new third act is going to affect how the rest of the film is perceived, particularly because now everyone in the world knows how it's going to end. Believe it or not, it's kind of hard to to keep up a sense of hopelessness when you know there's a happy ending around the corner.