Focus Features p.r. chief Adriene Bowles has a new gig as president of publicity for Megan Ellison‘s Annapurna Pictures. I sent her a congrats along with a question about Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal‘s Untitled Detroit Riots Project, on which she’ll be riding shotgun.

“Good for you, Adriene, but why is Annapurna releasing Untitled Detroit Riots on 8.4.17?

“You can’t say ‘because it’ll be the 50-year anniversary of the start of the ’67 Detroit riots’ because (a) 8.4.17 isn’t the anniversary of anything plus (b) nobody cares about the damn anniversary anyway. The Detroit riots were over and done with on 8.4.67. They ignited on 7.23.67 and ended on 7.27.67 so the half-century anniversary is smoke.

“Three interpretations: (a) Detroit Riots is a good movie-movie and not an award-season thing, and that’s cool — nothing wrong with being a solid people-level thing; (b) Detroit Riots is an award-season thing but Annapurna is looking to throw out or more precisely defy the rulebook by ignoring the traditional Venice-Telluride-Toronto scheme but scoring nominations regardless; or (c) Annapurna would rather go for the late-summer revenue potential than endure the award-season gauntlet, which is another way of saying that (a) is the basic reality.”