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Call it bad behavior or rethinking over at The Weinstein Company, but Youth in Revolt has been pushed back to January 15, 2010.

The film starring Michael Cera was originally slated for a late October release (it’s playing Toronto right now), but I just received word of the scheduling switch. Normally, this kind of move could signal a lack of faith in the film, but we’re not dealing with an Oscar contender that’s suddenly been pushed out of contention.With a lack of information, I spoke with local representative of the film who speculated it could be a number of things including a need to have more time to build a marketing campaign for the movie.

The film has gotten decent reviews coming out of the Toronto International Film Festival, especially for Michael Cera stepping out of his character rut, so it very well might be that the change comes from a place of positivity instead of a lack of faith in the film. The only thing keeping me cautious is the Weinstein name stamped all over this thing.

We normally think of January (with its Paul Blart: Mall Cops, 27 Dresses, and Big Momma’s Houses) as a dead zone, but it runs only slightly behind October which is usually saved for horror like Saw and stuff like Beverly Hills Chihuahua. Both months see most films opening low or peaking in the $20-30 million range for openings so this isn’t all that substantial a change when you really look at it. It might have also been difficult for a film like Youth in Revolt to grab a decent amount of the take with Saw VI looming large over that weekend (unless it nose dives after a week in theaters). Maybe the threat was too much, maybe the advertising campaign wasn’t ramped up enough, maybe they want to build on positive reviews from TIFF.

Or maybe it’s the Weinsteins up to their old tricks again.

Hard to say, but I’d like to remain optimistic here. The book is fantastic, and so far the film looks great.

What do you think?