Sony moves the Fanning sisters' 'The Nightingale' to March 19, 2027

Sony announced Friday that TriStar's "The Nightingale" will open on March 19, 2027, five weeks later than the February 12 date it had been holding. The film is the first one Dakota and Elle Fanning have ever starred in together.

The reason for the move is a calendar, not a crisis. March 19 puts the movie one week ahead of Easter weekend (March 26 to 28 next year), which means its second frame lands in the holiday, and the release straddles the busiest stretch of college spring break. February 12 would have handed it a Valentine's weekend that is loud with competition and short on legs.

What it is now up against

Paramount has "Sonic the Hedgehog 4" on the same day. On paper that is a fight. In practice it is the point. A WWII drama about two sisters and a hedgehog racing through a family multiplex are not chasing the same ticket buyer, and the March calendar as it stands is not offering much for adult women. TriStar is betting that a film with no direct competition for that audience does better opposite a blue cartoon than it would in the middle of a crowded February.

The Fannings arrive in better shape than they were a week ago. Both were Emmy nominated this month: Elle in lead comedy actress for "Margo's Got Money Troubles," Dakota in supporting actress in a limited series for "All Her Fault."

The long road here

Michael Morris ("Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy") directs from a script by Dana Stevens, who wrote "The Woman King." The source is Kristin Hannah's 2015 novel, which follows two sisters in German-occupied France who take separate and dangerous routes through the war. The book hit No. 1 on the New York Times bestseller list, has spent 165 weeks on it over the past decade, and has sold more than 11 million copies in 45 languages.

TriStar won the rights in 2015. The Fannings attached themselves in 2019. They are producing through their Lewellen Pictures alongside Brittany Kahan Ward, with Elizabeth Cantillon of The Cantillon Company and Reese Witherspoon and Lauren Neustadter of Hello Sunshine. Nicole Brown and Shary Shirazi are overseeing for TriStar.

The sisters had turned down chances to work together before. They shared a role, at different ages, in 2001's "I Am Sam," and left it there.

"I think it was nice that we could forge our own paths and have our separate careers and discover ourselves as ourselves when we were younger, and not muddle that. Now that we're older, we really do want to mesh it all and experience that. We've never even read lines together," Dakota Fanning told The Hollywood Reporter last year.

A date change this far out is usually a studio protecting a movie it likes rather than hiding one it doesn't. Sony had a slot in the dead of February and traded it for a runway into Easter. That is what confidence looks like on a release calendar.