Paramount has announced that Meryl Streep’s latest film, “Florence Foster Jenkins”, will open in the US on August 12th. Streep stars as Jenkins, a New York heiress who is remembered as the World’s WORST Opera Singer. Hugh Grant plays her loving and supportive husband and it’s directed by Stephen Frears – no stranger to capturing stellar performances, having worked with Helen Mirren on “The Queen” and Judi Dench on “Philomena”. “Florence” is the latest in a string of music-themed movies for Streep, who sung Abba in “Mamma Mia!” (2008), Sondheim in “Into the Woods” (2014) and rocked out to Springsteen, U2 and Gaga in last summer’s “Ricki and the Flash”.
“Florence Foster Jenkins” is being distributed by Fox in the UK and is actually opening there on May 6th. An August US release date for a Meryl Streep movie may seem odd since we expect her films to be saved for Awards Season. However, this is actually the fifth August Streep film in the last eight years: “Julie & Julia” (2009), “Hope Springs” (2012), “The Giver” (2014) and “Ricki” all came-out in August, with three of the four distributed by Sony. However, each subsequent film performed poorer at the box office, and Streep’s work as Julia Child was the only performance that garnered her an Oscar nomination (though she did get a Golden Globe nod for “Springs”).
Five of Streep’s six other live-action movies since “Doubt” in 2008 opened in the month of December. That film, along with “The Iron Lady” (2011), “August: Osage County” (2013 – ironically not released in the title month) and “Woods” did result in a trip to the Oscars. “It’s Complicated”, which opened Christmas Day 2009, earned Streep a Globe nomination, but she lost for that role…to herself…for her work in “Julie & Julia”. “Suffragette” (in which Streep had a five-minute role) came-out last October, the only non-August or December film in the bunch.
Does Paramount believe Streep is a legitimate awards contender for “Florence” (an Oscar nom would be her 20th) and therefore getting some early buzz will help? Or, could it be that “Florence Foster Jenkins” is simply not very good? The film just had its UK premiere, so reviews are sure to start coming in soon. The Weinstein Company is putting out Michael Keaton’s McDonalds biopic “The Founder” on Aug. 5, so the same questions can be asked on that strategy.
No matter the end result, Meryl Streep movies always attract some amount of attention. For me, there are two kinds of “event” movies. One category consists of the action/blockbusters and highly-anticipated sequels, prequels and threequels. The other is made up of films headlined by the handful of Hollywood mega-stars. Without question, the latest Streep movie is always at the top of that list.