Based on Michael Cunningham's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, "The Hours" will open in other cities Jan. 10, 2003, before rolling out across the country Jan. 17. The A-list cast includes Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore and Nicole Kidman as three women whose lives are all touched by one single great work of literature, Virginia Woolf's "Mrs. Dalloway." Directed by Stephen Daldry — of "Billy Elliott" fame — "The Hours" is a Scott Rudin/Robert Fox Production and features a score by composer Philip Glass. Best known for his plays The Blue Room, Plenty, The Secret Rapture and Amy's View, David Hare has also written one of this season's biggest hits in the West End, Breath of Life, which co-stars Dames Maggie Smith and Judi Dench. He also wrote the screenplays for "Wetherby," which won the Golden Bear for Best Film at the 1985 Berlin Festival; and "Damage," which starred Jeremy Irons, Miranda Richardson and Juliette Binoche. Hare's next film will be "The Corrections," which is based on Jonathan Franze's best-selling novel.

Nicole Kidman, who starred on Broadway in Hare's The Blue Room, portrays the legendary Virginia Woolf in "The Hours." Woolf's novel, "Mrs. Dalloway," affects the lives of both Laura Brown, a wife and mother in World War II-era Los Angeles, played by Julianne Moore; and Clarissa Vaughn (Meryl Streep), a woman in love with a poet dying of AIDS. Audiences have not easily recognized Kidman in ads for the picture, as she wears a false nose to look like Woolf.

"The Hours" was recently named Best Picture of 2002 by the National Board of Review.