Warner Bros. will release both J. Edgar and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close in 2011...

...putting them square in the Oscar race (and proving me right in heavily favoring them in my early predictions...huzzah). The Playlist has the details:

With The Weinstein Company busy over the last few weeks getting their Oscar season in order, Warner Bros. is following suit setting (vague) dates for two of their big prestige films of the year.

First up, Clint Eastwood‘s “J. Edgar” will hit theaters in a to be determined date in October. The film stars Leonardo DiCaprio as former FBI director J. Edgar Hoover and he’s got a great supporting cast around him. b> Armie Hammer, the breakout star of “The Social Network,” will play Clyde Tolson, Hoover’s assistant/lover, while Naomi Watts will play Helen Gandy, Hoover’s personal secretary. The film will also star Judi Dench, Stephen Root, Ed Westwick, and Josh Lucas. Of course, the big question is not if the film will be Oscar bait, but just what categories in can contend in. Even “Hereafter,” released in the same frame last year largely to muted reviews, wound up with an nomination for Visual Effects so anything is possible.

Next up, is Stephen Daldry‘s “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” and with Warner Bros setting it for sometime in December, they are clearing putting most of their Oscar push behind this one. Based on the book by Jonathan Safran Foer, the story focuses on Oskar Schell, a nine-year-old boy from Manhattan whose father died on 9/11. Two years later, the boy discovers a key belonging to his father, which sends him on a search through the city. Newcomer Thomas Horn will play Oskar, with Sandra Bullock and Tom Hanks as his parents, and John Goodman as a doorman who aids Schell on his quest. Viola Davis, Jeffrey Wright, Max Von Sydow and James Gandolfini round out the cast.

Best selling and critically acclaimed book + three time Best Director Oscar nominee + five time nominee and two-time Oscar winning actor + Best Actress winner = instant awards horse. They would have to screw the pooch pretty hard to mess this one up.

But if all this Oscar talk is boring you to tears, and you just want some big dumb noise, “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre”—IN 3D! WOO!—has now been set for October 5, 2012 release.

-Joey's Two Cents: Mark your calendars now...thoughts?

The Weinstein Company has got no shortage of 4th quarter films this year...

...and they certainly seem to be gunning for more Oscar gold. Coming Soon has the slate for this year and next:

The Weinstein Company have released a slew of release dates for their fall prestige pics, with many of them vying for Oscar nominations in order to keep up the company's success with last year's The King's Speech. But before we get to them, the movie that really stands out among the latest release schedule is seeing the title...

Scary Movie 5!
The project was announced back in 2009 and it was said that director David Zucker, who helmed the previous two movies in the series as well as some of greatest spoof movies of all time (like Airplane!) would be back helming it, though there's been no definite word whether series regulars Anna Faris and Regina Hall would be joining him. There have even been a number of presumably fake posters that have cropped up in the last few years there are certainly a lot of horror movies worth spoofing since the previous Scary Movie 4 was released over five years ago. There's Paranormal Activity for one and all the alien invasion movies that have been released in recent months. Who knows? Maybe they can even spoof Wes Craven's Scream 4 being that the original Scary Movie was basically a spoof of that series. Right now, we have no other information other than the release date of April 20, 2012, but we'll definitely be working on it in the weeks to come. Continuing in the horror vein and possibly a franchise that will avoid the spoof treatment is Patrick (My Bloody Valentine) Lussier's reboot Halloween 3D, which has been given the plum Halloween release date of October 26, 2012. You can read more about that over on ShockTillYouDrop.com. Then, for Oscar watchers, there's the long-awaited Marilyn Monroe movie My Week With Marilyn starring Michelle Williams, which will be released on November 4. Fresh off its critically-lauded run at the Cannes Film Festival, Michel Hazanavicius's black and white period romance The Artist will be released on November 23. Ralph Fiennes' directorial debut, the war film Coriolanus, co-starring Gerald Butler, Vanessa Redgrave, Jessica Chastain, Brian Cox and James Nesbitt will open on December 2, while the Margaret Thatcher biopic The Iron Lady, starring Meryl Streep and Jim Broadbent and directed by Phyllipa Lloyd (Mama Mia!), will open on December 16. We're unsure whether either of those will get a wide release out of the gate or a slower platform release to make them eligible for Oscars. Lastly, Lee Hirsh's documentary The Bully Project, which played at this year's Tribeca Film Festival, will be released by the Weinsteins on November 11.

-Joey's Two Cents: I think The Artist is their best hope, but we shall see...thoughts?

Look for Quentin Tarantino to leave you a stocking stuffer next December!

Yes, his next film is due next Christmas, according to Collider:

How cool is your family? For instance, if the new Quentin Tarantino movie opened on Christmas Day, would you have to ditch the folks for a couple hours, or could you bring them along? The Weinstein Company will put these family ties to the test with a December 25, 2012 release date for Django Unhcained [Box Office Mojo]. The supporting cast is mostly set: Christoph Waltz, Samuel L. Jackson, and Leonardo DiCaprio are all on board or about to be barring any sticking points in negotiations. Much less certain is who will play Django, the freed slave taught the tricks of the trade by a German bounty hunter (Waltz) to liberate his wife from an evil plantation owner (DiCaprio). Will Smith was the early frontrunner, though a deal has not come easy. More recently, Idris Elba, Chris Tucker, and Jamie Foxx came up as possible Djangos. Showbiz 411 hears Foxx is the closest to the role, but all is heresay until it’s in the trades. Production is scheduled for later this summer or early fall — with the finish line in place, we’ll meet our Django soon enough.

Christmas Day is a Tuesday in 2012. As of this writing, Django Unchained has the holiday all to itself, but Hunter Killer, Life of Pi, and The Lone Ranger open the Friday before, December 21.

-Joey's Two Cents: Christmas isn't my holiday, but this is still something to circle on the calendar...thoughts?