Until today it looked like Jake Gyllenhaal would give noteworthy performances in three major 2015 films, portraying a troubled boxer in Antoine Fuqua‘s Southpaw, a mountain-climber in Everest and an investment banker recovering from the death of his wife in Jean Marc Vallee‘s Demolition. My insect antennae were telling me, actually, that Jake’s Demolition performance (grieving widower + romantic rebound) might be his best shot at award-season accolades. I’ve been too lazy to read the Demolition script, of course, but maybe.

It made sense that the solemn-sounding Demolition would open later this year and maybe kick up a little dust. Vallee’s Dallas Buyer’s Club and Wild were in the derby in 2013 and ’14, respectively, so it added up. But then Fox Searchlight, the distributor of Demolition, never announced a 2015 release date, and this made some of us go “hmmm.” Now the other shoe has dropped. Demolition has been drop-kicked into a 4.8.16 release. Au revoir, Telluride and Toronto and all the giddy award-season razmatazz. Hello, April opening and some people paying respectful attention but with the electric-charge element sorta kinda missing. The film has now been officially classified as…well, let’s not jump to conclusions.