by Larry Richman
April 9, 2007 1:41 PM

The on-again off-again saga of All the Boys Love Mandy Lane is apparently off again. To follow the ups and downs of this film's roller coaster distribution ride would take much too much time than you or I have right now. Briefly, last year the Weinstein Company and its arm Dimension Films, who had picked up the film at the 2006 Toronto Film Festival, sold the North American theatrical distribution rights to German-based Senator Entertainment. This came just one week before the film's scheduled July 20 release.

Since Senator had never released a single film theatrically in the U.S., there was some speculation that the film would go straight-to-DVD -- Dimension retained the home video distribution rights. But Senator announced at the end of the year that they would give All the Boys Love Mandy Lane a wide release on 1,000-plus screens in early 2008. No specific date was ever made official, although January, February, March, April, and May were floated around as possible time frames (gee, I guess they wanted to cover all the bases, huh?).

Finally, a date of May 9 was tentatively announced. In fact, just a few weeks ago, at an Austin, Texas screening of his second film The Wackness, writer/director Jonathan Levine confirmed publicly that May 9 was the "hoped-for" release date.

Now word is circulating that a source at Senator Entertainment is saying that the May 9 release will not be happening. That same report said that August is now the "hoped-for" month. But other sources are denying that report.

Who to believe? The fact is, and I've been saying this here since last summer, there was NEVER an officially announced date. There were only potential time frames. But when someone at a distributor floats a date around it becomes official in the minds of the public if enough people say it is.

I've spoken with many sources associated with the film and never post anything unless it's official. But that's just me. The only thing I can tell you for sure is that nobody associated with the film knows what is going on. And that's the truth.