The new date is 12/25. Im not sure what the angle is here. Do you think this helps or hurts the opening weekend prospects for the film?

I am not sure it helps or hurts it in any significant way compared to how it would have performed opening on November 15th. Its new proximity to American Hustle, a similar film, is more of a problem for American Hustle than The Wolf of Wall Street. I believe it can earn around 13 to 15 million on Christmas Day.

It may impact its Oscar prospects more. Does it have more to prove to critics now because of its high-profile editorial snags? Does the fact it will screen for critics and Academy members later in the year change its status in the awards derby? Maybe.

Bad.

It could have earned money as counter-programming to the big November blockbusters of Thor and Hunger Games. Now it goes up against not only a similar product (Yankee Hustle), but a whole host of movies at the holiday time. Christmas day has 5 movies being released and The Hobbit will still be in circulation and very popular. Silly move.

It all depends on how heavy the marketing is. It might have been overshadowed by Thor marketing.

Negative.

It would have opened substantially bigger in November and still had solid legs. It's legs will be better in December but its OW will be a lot smaller and as others have said - it will have more competition now.

We are off course talking about 10-30m in domestic BO total difference but still.

In terms of Oscar - depends how good the film is.

Leo can open big anytime on the calendar, so it's good

This is also true, but I'm sure he would also prefer less competition.

It will gross around the same either way. Doesn't make much of a difference.

I have the same feeling. The move really doesn't do too much for it financially not does it take away too much.

Oscar race might depend on how good the movie is.

All of these comments make a lot of sense. Since it will now be a 5 day release what do you think the prospects for the opening weekend are?

Again not much change financially but I believe it could have done better in November and served a good counter to Hunger Games. Now it is being over-shadowed by Hustle and over-loads of December release.

I don't know. It will have a bit more staying power in December/January despite the mixed word-of-mouth. In November, it would have opened big and plummeted and also, by extension, found itself at more of a disadvantage in the Oscar race.

Eh, if it had opened in November as it is now It probably would've had a lot more time for the negative reactions to set in, and by December rolls around it would've probably been easier to ignore with how many strong film there are this year. Now it was a little harder to ignore because it came out so late, and Scorsese I think got a lot of benefit of the doubt. Similar thing happened to War Horse or ELAIC, both of which started losing buzz as they opened, but still got the Picture nominations anyway thanks to their pedigrees. The same can still happen to Wolf (though I think it's on the cusp now - if it's nominated it's entirely because they love Scorsese that much).

In the end though I think it makes about the same amount of money at either date - probably a $70-85 million total. Though thanks to the holidays it might be closer to the higher end of that, whereas without the holidays it might've been closer to the lower end.

In the end I think it will be a good move.

It's still too early

Its still too early and IF bad WOM is the reason the movies does lesser numbers then I believe December was a MUCH better release date for it.

Basically agree with what Jon said. Gross wise it probably didn't matter much, but it's more likely to survive the mediocre-or-divisive WOM during the holiday season than in November.