I’m watching this Grace of Monaco teaser without headphones in a noisy Coffee Bean cafe at the corner of 14th and Ninth Ave., but I’m guessing that the balding older guy reclining in the back seat of a Rolls Royce convertible as it rolls up to a scenic spot above Monaco is Alfred Hitchcock (who is played in the film by Roger Ashton-Griffiths)? Ditto the portly guy seen in distant silhouette in the next clip? Olivier Dahan‘s drama, which is curiously not about the 1955 and ’56 courtship and marriage between Grace Kelly and Prince Rainer nor about her death in 1982, will open on 11.27 via the Weinstein Co. No way in hell will I ever accept Tim Roth as Rainer…forget it. They should have cast Tom Hanks.

The Weinstein Co. invited press and buyers to a Majestic Hotel preview of the company’s 2013 films. The crowd was shown trailer/footage reels for Ain’t Them Bodies Saints, Fruitvale Station, The Butler, August: Osage County, Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom, The Grandmaster, Grace of Monaco, Salinger, Only God Forgives, James Gray‘s The Immigrant and One Chance, a drama about opera-singer Paul Potts.

Grace of Monaco star Nicole Kidman, Ain’t Them Bodies Saints costar Rooney Mara, the Fruitvale Station guys (Ryan Coogler, Michael B. Jordan, Octavia Spencer, Melonie Diaz) and Mandela: Walk to Freedom director Justin Chadwick and costar Naomie Harris joined Harvey Weinstein on stage for the presentation.

Based on the trailers shown, the likeliest Weinstein Co. Oscar contenders are John Wells‘ August: Osage County and Ryan Coogler‘s Fruitvale Station. If you ask me Twenty Feet From Stardom, which the Weinstein Co. acquired at Sundance, is a likely Best Documentary Feature Oscar contender but today’s presentation was about future releases. Ain’t Them Bodies Saints, which I saw at Sundance, is going to be a sizable critical hit and a likely Spirit Awards nominee.

Deadline‘s Michael Fleming is reporting that the Weinstein Co. will soon acquire domestic rights to Grace Of Monaco, in which Nicole Kidman will play actress-turned-princess Grace Kelly under director Olivier Dahan (La Vie en Rose).

Tim Roth, of all people, will play Monaco’s Prince Rainier III.

TWC will pay $4 million up-front and commit to an 800-screen opening next December with a $10 million p & a fund, Fleming reports. Dahan is a serious and exacting director, of course, and the December debut suggests that Harvey is betting on Grace being an awards-season player.

I’m sorry but I see a roadblock right away in the casting of Kidman and Roth. Fleming writes that the film will focus on a period in the early ’60s (specifically ’62 to ’64) when Princess Grace helped her husband settle a dispute between Monaco and Franch president Charles De Gaulle over tax laws. Kelly, born on 11.12.29, was between 32 and 34 when the story occurs, and Kidman, who will turn 46 in June, is, all due respect, too old to play someone in her early 30s. She can pretend to be that age and we can pretend along with her, of course, but it won’t feel right. The beautiful and well-tended Kidman has delivered fine performances under the right directors, but you can’t fake youth. She would have been a perfect choice to play Princess Grace about ten years ago. She’s a lot closer right now to the 52 year-old Grace who died in a car crash in September 1982.

And the idea of the 51 year-old Roth playing Rainer (who was around 40 at the time of the story) is looney-tunes. The physical resemblance is non-existent. Roth-as-Rainer is the same realm as casting Seth Rogen to play President Warren G. Harding. You know who looks like Prince Rainer now and could have almost pulled it off despite his being too old? Tom Hanks.

Pledging to spend $10 million on an 800-screen opening is actually a fairly modest thing. It may well be that Grace of Monaco will turn out to be as good as La Vie en Rose, but it seems to me like more of a box-office bet than an award-season contender.