This screenshot from Carol lies. The first Todd Haynes movie in 8 years is opening on December 18th, not the 21st. Anyway the screenshot is pulled from new footage which is mixed in with other footage and interviews from Cannes from Film4 which you can see below
And because we're thinking about HOW VERY LONG IT IS UNTIL WE SEE CAROL here's the holiday calendar just to lament, as is our tradition, that early December is empty but late December is crowded (sigh).
THANKSGIVING
The Good Dinosaur
Victor Frankenstein
Midnight Special
DECEMBER DATES
04th Krampus (Horror Comedy)
Why is this weekend so empty?
11th In the Heart of the Sea (Ron Howard)
The Lady in the Van (that lady be Dame Maggie Smith)
Why is this weekend so empty?
18th Carol (Todd Haynes)
Star Wars: The Force Awakens (aka Episode VII)
Sisters (Amy Poehler & Tina Fey)
I mean obviously Carol breaks all opening weekend box office records this weekend
23rd Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip
CHRISTMAS
Two of the Hateful Eight: Demian Bichir & Kurt Russell
25th Point Break (Remake)
Concussion (Will Smith in a drama about football brain injuries)
The Hateful Eight (Tarantino's latest bloody western going the Django route)
The Revenant (Inaritu's directs Leo DiCaprio & Tom Hardy)
Snowden (Oliver Stone & Joseph Gordon-Levitt)
Joy (David O. Russell & Jennifer Lawrence)
31st Nothing scheduled yet but this is traditionally the weekend wherein sometimes great movies are sacrificed to the whims of "Oscar qualifying" contracts and get no real support from their distributor
There are still several films with major stars and/or possible critical darling appeal without US release dates: the new version of MacBeth, Werner Herzog's Queen of the Desert, Jean-Marc Vallée's Demolition, Luca Guadagino's A Bigger Splash, James Vanderbilt's Truth, the Lance Armstrong bio The Program and the Hank Williams bio I Saw the Light. Some of them will surely end up in December but we hope against hope that this year is light on the stupid "Oscar Qualifying" releases.