This won't be news to anyone outside of Los Angeles and New York City who wanted to catch Peter Jackson's newest film over the holiday weekend, but here goes anyway: Paramount has decided to hold off on a wide release of The Lovely Bones until January 15, in the wake of a critical drubbing and a perhaps belated realization that, whoah, there's a lot of competition out there.
Instead, according to The Los Angeles Times, the studio will open Bones against new releases like The Spy Next Door and The Book of Eli, assuming correctly that there's a lot of people out there who would rather die than see either new release. It's not the worst strategy ever, even if it's a clear surrender in the Oscar race (other than Stanley Tucci's Best Supporting Actor nod) and an admission that this expensive movie is unlikely to be a hit.
The real winners will be moviegoers, who are normally faced with a glut of content in December and a complete wasteland in January. The Lovely Bones isn't a great movie by any means, but it likely beats nearly everything else coming out that month. Think of it as a belated holiday present from Paramount.
