SUBMITTED BY Kristin

December 18, 2001 — Kate & Leopold will now open on Christmas day (December 25). Here is the story... "NEW YORK (The Hollywood Reporter) --- Citing the extremely strong tracking of New Line's "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring" and a complement of event pictures opening this week, Miramax Films has postponed the opening of its romantic comedy "Kate & Leopold," starring Meg Ryan and Hugh Jackman, from Friday to Christmas Day. It is an extremely crowded pre-Christmas weekend, with "Rings" set to open in more than 3,300 locations Wednesday, followed Friday by Warner Bros.' "The Majestic" in more than 2,100 venues, Paramount's "Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius" in 2,800 locations, Fox's "Joe Somebody" in more than 2,400 theaters and Universal's "How High" in about 1,200 sites. "Kate & Leopold" was originally booked into about 2,800 theaters, but the date change has left it with slightly more than 2,500 sites. According to Miramax, securing theaters was not a problem for the coming weekend; gaining visibility was. "Tracking on 'Lord of the Rings' is absolutely fabulous," Miramax chairman of worldwide distribution Rick Sands said. "It's tracking incredibly well through all quadrants. It's tracking fabulously in our quadrants as well, which was not expected." "Kate & Leopold" should appeal to female viewers, particularly older ones. Although not expected to be strong with a male audience, Sands said that exit polls showed a positive male response, "but it wasn't the movie they would choose to see first." According to at least one competing distributor, however, "Kate & Leopold" did not prove a strong draw at sneak previews over the past weekend, and that also might have influenced Miramax's decision to postpone its unveiling. Sands also said there are indications that many people are waiting longer to do their Christmas shopping, and this includes "mothers and grandmothers," clearly a target audience. "We changed the date in order to get the female audience," Sands said. "There is a lot of clutter to sort through this weekend, so we'll let things die down, let the campaign take shape and build into Christmas." Although facing stiff competition Christmas Day, "Kate & Leopold," as a romantic comedy, is likely to be more visible. Aside from the wide release of Sony's "Ali," Christmas Day also will see the limited opening of Miramax's "The Shipping News" and the expansion of Universal's "A Beautiful Mind," which opens in nine cities Friday, into more than 500 theaters. Dec. 26 marks the select openings of such films as USA Films' "Gosford Park" and Lions Gate's "Monster's Ball."" However, on Coming Attractions they said that the release date was changed because "According to the Coming Soon website, one of their scoopers believes the decision was made by the studio after seeing the strong ticket grosses from the film's sneak preview held a week ago. [Source: Coming Soon.]"