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It’s been almost a year and a half since it was first reported that Morgan Freeman was developing a biopic of Nelson Mandela, and in that time the world has changed quite dramatically. The project, with the working title The Human Factor has been filming this spring, and now they have a release date.

The newly named Invictus will go head to head with Peter Jackson’s The Lovely Bones on December 11th – which also vindicates my creating Oscar buzz for the movie before it was even in production. Eastwood pairing with Freeman to create the story of such an important historical figure seems like it could print its own Oscar ballots, and that late-December release date definitely backs that theory up. Hopefully we’re in for a fantastic film.

I realize that The Human Factor sounds a bit generic as a title, but I can’t even begin to wrap my mind around Invictus. It’s the Latin word for “Invincible,” which, yes, means that the Nelson Mandela film shares the name with a Marky Mark Wahlberg movie (and a Werner Herzog flick, if you’re counting).

No word yet on whether the story will follow Mandela trying out for the Philadelphia Eagles.

What do you think?