When there was no follow-up to a June report, I went and figured Gus Van Sant wouldn’t, in fact, be able to premiere his newest film, Promised Land, until 2013. If you ever needed an additional example with which to discredit yours truly…

Jeff Sneider has tweeted that Promised Land will hit New York and Los Angeles on December 28th for an Oscar-qualifying run, with other markets getting it around 2013′s start. (A similar strategy employed for The New World and Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close. Let’s hope this is much more Malick and a lot less Daldry.) The fact that we’ve heard so little on the picture notwithstanding, take this as a big sign of confidence from Focus.

Breaking it down, one can easily see – depending on how the thing actually turns out — that Matt Damon and John Krasinski might be up for acting and / or screenwriting recognitions Van Sant could be in store for something, there’s a great supporting cast that creates ample opportunity, and so on. We’ll see how much the Academy is compelled by fracking.

Next, ERCBoxOffice tweet that DreamWorks Animation have set a date for Me and My Shadow. This hybrid of CGI and hand-drawn animation — which Bill Hader, Kate Hudson, and Josh Gad voice for director Alessandro Carloni — has been set to hit on March 14th, 2014, the same day as Disney’s Maleficent; based on what we’ve heard, Shadow might prove to be the better choice on that (far-off) weekend. (They’ve also got something coming on November 6th, 2015, if BoxOfficeMojo is to be believed. No, we’re not sure what that may be.)

In related territory, THR says Universal have dated their Despicable Me spin-off focusing on the Minions; that’s coming December 19th, 2014. So, if you really want to see this, start building up patience. The series’ director, Pierre Coffin, will partner with Kyle Balda (The Lorax) on the project scripted by Brian Lynch.

Is it nice to see Promised Land coming before the year’s end? What are your thoughts on DreamWorks Animation and Universal’s other moves?