Focus Features sets awards corridor US release for Chloé Zhao’s ‘Hamnet’

Focus Features has scheduled a US limited release on November 27 prior to wide expansion on December 12 for Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet starring Jessie Buckley, Paul Mescal, Emily Watson, and Joe Alwyn.

Zhao, who won best picture and directing Oscars for Nomadland in 2021, directs and co-wrote the screenplay with Maggie O’Farrell, based on O’Farrell’s 2020 bestseller of the same name.

Hamnet is set against the backdrop of the creation of William Shakespeare’s celebrated play Hamlet, as his wife Agnes struggles to come to terms with the death of her only son.

Liza Marshall, Pippa Harris, Nic Gonda, Sam Mendes, and Steven Spielberg serve as producers, while the executive producers are Kristie Macosko Krieger, Laurie Borg, and Zhao.

Earlier this week Focus dated Ethan Coen’s dark comedy and Cannes midnight Screenings selection Honey Don’t! for August 22, and Neil Diamond tribute band drama Song Sung Blue for December 25.

Wes Anderson’s Cannes Competition entry The Phoenician Scheme opens on May 30, Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale releases on September 12, and Yorgos Lanthimos’s Bugonia arrives on November 7.

At time of writing there was still no release date for Ronan Day-Lewis drama Anemone starring his father Daniel Day-Lewis.

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