It hasn’t been reported anywhere yet, but I’m told Warner Bros. will be releasing Ed Harris‘s Appaloosa, a New Line reject starring Viggo Mortensen, Renee Zellweger, Harris, Jeremy Irons and Lance Henriksen, on Wednesday, 9.17.08 in New York, L.A. and Toronto, followed by a 500-screen break on Friday, 9.19.

Appaloosa star Viggo Mortenson.

5:39 pm Update: Another guy has written in and said “It’s still a New Line movie, New Line execs are still doing the development/cutting, and New Line came up with the release plan. It’s a Warner Brothers movie like Sex and the City is a Warner Brothers movie — in that WB passed on it and New Line made it.”
The western is about two gunmen, a marshall named Virgil Cole (Harris) and his deputy and friend Everett Hitch (Mortensen) trying to free a town from its thrall to a thuggish rancher (Irons…I think). Zellweger plays a young widow who presumably falls for Harris or Mortenson or whatever. Appaloosa is Harris’ second film as a director, the first having been Pollock.
Check out the Appaloosa IMDB boards and you’ll see it’s gotten some good reviews from test screenings. Looks to me like an almost sure bet for the ’08 Toronto Film Festival. Mortensen has been a steady attender of that gathering in recent years. Now we have an outdoorsy adventure-ish Viggo Mortensen movie (a period western) set for release just over two months before the 11.26 opening of The Road, an adaptation of the Cormac McCarthy novel in which he also stars.

Appaloosa director, cowriter and costar Ed Harris.