The Wachowski Siblings and Tom Twyker's highly ambitious adaptation of Cloud Atlas now has a release date and a run-time.  According to Thompson on Hollywood, Warner Bros. has picked up distribution rights at Cannes for $20 million, and will release the movie on December 6th.  Additionally, the movie reportedly runs at 2-hours and 44-minutes, which seems about right when you consider that the movie spans six time periods, and you have an ensemble cast each playing multiple roles.  For example, Hugh Grant will be playing six "incredibly evil" characters in the movie, and Halle Berry said one of her roles is a Jewish woman in the 1930s, and another is an old tribal woman.

Hit the jump for a synopsis.  Cloud Atlas also stars Tom Hanks, Susan Sarandon, Hugo Weaving, Ben Whishaw, James D’Arcy, and Jim Sturgess.   Surprisingly, the only other film set to open the same weekend as Cloud Atlas is Hyde Park on Hudson, but the following Friday is the blockbuster one-two punch of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and Les Miserables.

Here's the synopsis of David Michod's novel, Cloud Atlas:

A reluctant voyager crossing the Pacific in 1850; a disinherited composer blagging a precarious livelihood in between-the-wars Belgium; a high-minded journalist in Governor Reagan’s California; a vanity publisher fleeing his gangland creditors; a genetically modified “dinery server” on death-row; and Zachry, a young Pacific Islander witnessing the nightfall of science and civilisation — the narrators of Cloud Atlas hear each other’s echoes down the corridor of history, and their destinies are changed in ways great and small. [Amazon]