Steven Spielberg hasn't released a new film he directed since Indiana Jones 4, preferring instead to produce everything from Transformers 2 to Hereafter, but Spielberg-as-director will be coming back in full force come Christmas 2011. DreamWorks has announced, via Deadline, that Spielberg's new film War Horse will be released December 28, just five days after his motion-capture film The Adventures of Tin Tin hits theaters. The studio said that after screening War Horse, the story of a boy who enlists in World War I to track down his beloved horse, it felt "like a holiday movie."

DreamWorks made some other less notable changes to the schedule, slotting the Emma Stone-starring The Help for August 12, the Hugh Jackman robot boxing movie Real Steel for October 7, and Fright Night 3D, the remake of the 80s horror anthology, for August 19. It's hard to know how big a movie War Horse will be in comparison to any of these-- it's based on a children's book by Michael Morpurgo, but seems like more of a Spielberg passion project than a slam dunk. Then again, "holiday movie" is often code for "giant, across-the-board blockbuster," so don't count this one out by any means.