Sony Pictures Classics has pushed back the release for Roger Michell’s film The Duke, starring Academy Award winners Jim Broadbent and Helen Mirren, by a month—from March 25 to April 22, 2022. It will be released in theaters in New York and Los Angeles on the latter date before expanding to additional cities over the following weeks.
The dramedy marking one of the final projects from Michell, who passed away in September, received a one-week awards qualifying run in Los Angeles this past December.
It was initially set to open against The Daniels’ SXSW opener Everything Everywhere All at Once for A24; Paramount Pictures’ comedy The Lost City, starring Sandra Bullock, Channing Tatum, Daniel Radcliffe and Brad Pitt; and Sony Pictures Classics’ own romantic drama, Mothering Sunday. But it will now play against Good Deed Entertainment’s animated film Charlotte, featuring the voices of Broadbent, Keira Knightley, Marion Cotillard and more; Universal Pictures’ comedy The Bad Guys, with Sam Rockwell, Awkwafina, Anthony Ramos and Marc Maron; Robert Eggers’ The Northman, starring Alexander Skarsgård, Nicole Kidman and more, for Focus Features; and Lionsgate’s meta Nicolas Cage comedy The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent.
Screening at the Venice Film Festival in 2020 and at Telluride in 2021, The Duke tells the story of Kempton Bunton (Broadbent), a 60-year-old taxi driver who, in 1961, steals Goya’s portrait of the Duke of Wellington from the National Gallery in London. Mirren portrays Bunton’s wife, Dorothy.
Richard Bean and Clive Coleman penned the script, with Nicky Bentham serving as the film’s producer. Cameron McCracken and Jenny Borgars exec produced for Pathé, with Andrea Scarso for Ingenious Media, Hugo Heppell for Screen Yorkshire, Peter Scarf and Christopher Bunton.
Michell’s final film, Elizabeth, about British monarch Queen Elizabeth II, will be released in the U.S. by A24 and also recently sold around the world.
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