First Look: Nicole Kidman, Dev Patel, Rooney Mara in Weinstein Oscar Player ‘Lion’

On the heels of its announcement as a World Premiere in this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, The Weinstein Company’s #1 Oscar hope this year, Lion, has given us a big first look at Oscar-winner Nicole Kidman, Dev Patel and Oscar-nominee Rooney Mara.

Directed by Garth Davis (TV’s Top of the Lake, in his feature film debut), Lion tells the true story of a five-year-old Indian boy who gets on the wrong train and is taken thousands miles away from home. He is adopted by an Australian couple (Nicole Kidman and David Wenham) and 25 years later returns to India to find his lost family with the help of Google Earth.

The Weinstein Company (and before with Miramax) has been a strong Oscar player for nearly two decades. But between financial troubles, buying and dropping movies and recent spotty Oscar history they’re in need of a return to awards glory. Last year, Carol and The Hateful Eight underperformed (despite TH8‘s win for Ennio Morricone neither got in Best Picture) and this year has already seen the studio move release dates twice for its McDonald’s movie The Founder starring Michael Keaton. Lion is going to have be more Philomena than Big Eyes to capture an audience and those audience awards at film festivals that TWC loves.

Check out where Lion stands among our Gold Rush Gang for the 2017 Oscars.

The film is set for release by The Weinstein Company in the prime awards date of November 25th (Thanksgiving weekend) and is co-produced by Angie Fielder and by Oscar-winners Iain Canning and Emile Sherman (The King’s Speech). It was written by Luke Davies, from the non-fiction book A Long Way Home by Saroo Brierley based on life.

Here is your first look, with photos courtesy of AwardsToday:

The poster (previously released):

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Erik Anderson

Erik Anderson is the founder/owner and Editor-in-Chief of AwardsWatch and has always loved all things Oscar, having watched the Academy Awards since he was in single digits; making lists, rankings and predictions throughout the show. This led him down the path to obsessing about awards. Much later, he found himself in film school and the film forums of GoldDerby, and then migrated over to the former Oscarwatch (now AwardsDaily), before breaking off to create AwardsWatch in 2013.

He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Critics Choice Association (CCA), San Francisco Bay Area Film Critics Circle (SFBAFCC) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.

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