Sony Pictures has shifted the Fury release date for director David Ayer’s (End of Watch) World War II tank drama up nearly a month from its original release date of November 14th to October 17th, which could signal a strong awards play for the promising film.  Brad Pitt leads the original story of a tank crew battling a desperate Nazi army in the last days of World War II, and the film’s first trailer makes the pic look rather excellent.  Instead of battling for screens alongside Interstellar and The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 in the middle of November, Fury will now open opposite Dracula Untold, the animated film The Book of Life, the romance The Best of Me, and the Jake Gyllenhaal-fronted Nightcrawler. 

The October launching pad has given us recent heavy hitters like Gravity, 12 Years a Slave, and Argo, so this new release date could certainly kick off a strong awards campaign for Fury.  Of course no one’s seen the film yet so it’s tough to predict its prospects with any degree of certainty, but Sony is clearly bullish on the pic.