Susan Sarandon a Grandma?

It’s November, so I’m actually late to start speculating about the Oscar race. But one that caught my attention is The Lovely Bones, which is considered to be a strong contender.

This not only the experts opinion but the studio’s as well, given that Paramount pushed the October release of Shutter Island to next year to concentrate on a campaign for this Peter Jackson adaptaion of the Alice Sebold bestseller.

Before I start with my oficial speculations let me make this clear, I am a huge fan of Peter Jackson’s work (and that extends well beyond the Rings trilogy). But even though this looks like a return to Heavenly Creatures territory, I forsee a couple of bums in the road. Meaning, Lovely Bones could turn into 2009’s Dreamgirls-a movie that got way too much hype but failed to get the coveted Best Picture nod.

How could this possibly happen? Well consider this, how many people do you know want to go see a movie about a family torn apart by the murder of their pre-teen daughter? Sure the original material was a best seller, but did that make The Deep End of The Ocean movie-based on another hit novel about a child in peril- a hit? If you don’t know which Michelle Pfeiffer movie I’m talking about, I’ve just proved my point. (It doesn’t count if you watched it on Lifetime!!)

So in order to make it to the big show, The Lovely Bones needs to be a critical and comercial hit. But before we find out if that’s going to happen, take a look at this behind-the scenes feature on the making of the movie.