Toronto: Paramount Sets October 2012 Awards-Season Debut For Sopranos Creator David Chases First Movie

EXCLUSIVE: Although Paramount is represented in Toronto this year by its Sundance pickup and awards hopefulLike Crazy (10/28), which will have its premiere here Tuesday night, and also by Steven Spielberg’s motion capture animated filmThe Adventures of TinTin (12/23), for which theywill have preview showings Monday (the same 8-minutereel seen at Comic-Con),they are apparently already thinking about the 2012 awards season. I have learned that the studio hasdated The Sopranos creator David Chase’s anticipated and nowuntitledfeature writing and directorialdebut to open in the heart of next year’s awards season — on October 19, 2012. The film, known during production as Twylight Zones, will be releasedwith the Paramount Vantage label. Itwas shot earlier this year, is now in post and is a suburban-set 1960s-set story about a group of friends in New Jersey who form a garage bandin order to pursue their rockdreams. Itstars Brad Garrett, Christopher McDonald, Molly Price, John Magaro, Lisa Lampanelli, Jack Huston and most notablyreunites Chasewith his Emmy-winning Sopranos star James Gandolfini, who plays a post-war, post-Depression Era parent who has worked hard to give his son everything he didn’t have but now feels some jealousy about the free-wheeling lifethe boy gets to experience. Growing up as a New Jersey teen in the 60s, Chase himself pursued similar musical dreams, so the story obviously has a major personal connection for him.Oscar winner Mark Johnson (Rainman) produces with Chase, and another Sopranos actor, Steven Van Zandt, serves as executive producer and music supervisor. There was some buzz that Paramount might try to bring the film into this year’s awards season, but instead I am told the studio has decided to hold it for next year’s pack of hopefuls. Paramount’s current awards-season dance card is crowded withfour animation entries and another upcoming 2011 hoped-for Oscar player in Jason Reitman’s Charlize Theron dramaYoung Adult, which is skipping the fall festival circuit and will open December 9. With past successes in Toronto like Thank You For Smoking, Juno and Up in the Air, this is the first time one of Reitman’s films has gone AWOL from TIFF, although Reitman has been seen around town this week.

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