Good news for fans of the cinema of Frank Miller. Lionsgate has decided to move Miller’s solo directorial debut The Spirit from its original January 16th release date to December 25th 2008.

This means bigger audiences fro The Spirit, at least from being open on national Jews Go To The Movies Day. Not to mention that the farther a film gets away from the late February dumping ground reserved for parody films and cheap date movies, the better.

The decision apparently originated with Lionsgate president Tom Ortenberg seeing the fan reaction to the trailer at New York Comic Con, and he decided to let the movie bow in a little bit early.

Not to mention that Lionsgate’s sudden buddy-buddy stance with Paramount, Viacom and MGM probably made it a lot easier for The Spirit to slide into Para’s Star Trek gap, left when Trek was bumped to summer ’09.