Spike Jonze’s ‘Her’ Pushed Back For Awards Season

Looks like we have a fantastic Oscar race ahead of us. Spike Jonze’s Her, which stars Joaquin Phoenix and the voice of Scarlett Johansson, has been pushed back in its release for a better slot for the awards season.

Originally slated for a November 20 limited release, Her will now open on December 18 in New York, Los Angeles, and Toronto. For those of you who aren’t in those particular locations, you will have to catch the film in 2014, for when it goes wide January 10.

Her sees Joaquin Phoenix as a socially inadequate recently single man, who falls in love with his artificial intelligent computer assistant, played by Scarlett Johansson. With the release of its trailer, fans and cinema enthusiasts were absolutely charmed by the story found in Spike Jonze’s return to simpler storytelling.

When Jonze was asked about the film over the summer, he said this:

“It’s a movie set in the slight future of L.A. and Joaquin Phoenix’s character buys the world’s first artificially intelligent operating system. It basically turns into a human, this entity, this consciousness, on his computer.”

The only news we had heard outside of that quote was when Scarlett Johansson replaced Samantha Morton, and had to re-recorded all of the dialogue. It would have been interesting to see Joaquin Phoenix act against Scarlett’s voice, but we have a feeling either way, it’s going to be a performance worth seeing.

The delay of the film’s release date is not surprising at all, as Warner Bros really needs a horse in the Oscar race, given its horrible luck over the last year. Although Argo ended up taking the top prize during last year’s ceremony, that still doesn’t account for the brutal box office blunders that were Rock of Ages, Gangster Squad, Jack the Giant Slayer, and Beautiful Creatures.

For those who want to see it early, you can catch it at the New York Film Festival, where it’s slated to close.