The red carpet at Hollywood’s Dolby Theatre hasn’t even been rolled up, but Hollywood is already buzzing about next year’s Oscar race.
Prognosticating this far out is not for the faint of heart, as some possible contenders have yet to lock down release dates or even US distributors.
Will James Gandolfini, who failed to net a posthumous Oscar nomination for “Enough Said,” have more luck with his final film, a Brooklyn-based crime drama that’s now being called “The Drop”?
And then there’s late Oscar winner Philip Seymour Hoffman, who has two small films (“God’s Pocket’’ and “A Most Wanted Man’’) that premiered at Sundance due this year.
Here, in no particular order, are a selection of films on the horizon that would seem to be contenders:
- “Exodus” — The story of Moses (Christian Bale) leading the Hebrews from slavery in Egypt gets revisited on the big screen for the first time since Cecil B. DeMille’s “The Ten Commandments’’ in 1956. Ridley Scott (“Gladiator”) directs.
- “Grace of Monaco’’ — Nicole Kidman plays Grace Kelly in this drama centering on France-Monaco politics. It’s opening this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Color us skeptical, but you never know.
- “Into the Woods’’ — Adaptations of Broadway musicals include Clint Eastwood’s “Jersey Boys’’ and “Annie’’ with Quvenzhané Wallis. But the heaviest hitter is this adaptation of the Steven Sondheim fairy tale with Meryl Streep, and Johnny Depp.
- “Inherent Vice’’ — Director Paul Thomas Anderson (“There Will Be Blood”) reunites with “The Master” star Joaquin Phoenix, who plays a drug-fueled 1970s detective investigating the murder of his former girlfriend.
- “Fury’’ — Brad Pitt as a hardened tank commander in World War II who leads a squad including Shia LaBeouf and Logan Lerman. Directed by David Ayer (“End of Watch’’).
- “Gone Girl” — David Fincher’s first since “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’’ stars Ben Affleck as an out-of-work magazine editor who becomes the chief suspect when his wife (Rosamund Pike) goes missing.
- “Big Eyes’’ — Tim Burton’s first biopic since “Ed Wood’’ stars Amy Adams as painter Margaret Keane, whose husband (Christoph Waltz) claimed he was responsible for her canvases of oversized, doe-eyed children.
- “Interstellar’’ — A post-“Dark Knight’’ Christopher Nolan directs a heavyweight cast (Matthew McConaughey, Jessica Chastain, Anne Hathaway) in a sci-fi tale about intergalactic travel via a wormhole. Or something like that.
- “Foxcatcher” — Steve Carell plays eccentric millionaire John du Pont, who in 1997 was convicted of murdering his friend David Schultz (Channing Tatum). The latest from director Bennett Miller (“Moneyball’’).
- “Untitled Cameron Crowe Project’’ — The ubiquitous Bradley Cooper has also finished the “Almost Famous’’ director’s latest, playing a defense contractor in this long-planned romantic dramedy set in Hawaii. it co-stars Rachel McAdams.
- “Boyhood” — This three-hour experimental epic about a family (Patricia Arquette, Ethan Hawke and others) was shot by Richard Linklater over 12 years.