Director Laurie Lynd was skeptical about opening Breakfast with Scot during the holidays. His gay-themed comedy arrives Friday, one week into the Hollywood holiday rush that began with Fred Claus last week and continues this week with the Dustin Hoffman-starrer Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium.

Lynd tells Playback Daily that he and producer Paul Brown preferred a spring opening for Scot, about a gay couple comprised of an ex-Toronto Maple Leaf and a sports lawyer, who become the guardians of a 12-year-old boy. It stars Tom Cavanagh (Ed), Ben Shenkman (Then She Found Me) and young Montreal native Noah Bernett.

‘[Distributor Mongrel Media] felt really strongly that we should open now to maximize the festival exposure and because Scot has a happy ending at Christmas, [in keeping with] the holiday theme,’ he says, adding that the film received ‘tons’ of press during the Toronto International Film Festival.

Scot is also the first gay-themed film to get an endorsement from a professional sports team, in this case the Leafs and the National Hockey League.

‘They’ve been amazingly supportive,’ Lynd says.

The comedy was initially slated to open on one screen each in Toronto and Vancouver, but Mongrel was able to bump the number to four in Toronto, including the Carlton, Canada Square, Kennedy Commons and Winston Churchill theaters.

Lynd says he’s ‘relieved’ that Scot will be playing on more than one screen, noting the film could appeal to a mainstream audience and ‘we’re likely to catch some of them in [the suburbs of] Scarborough and Oakville.’

Seville shopped Scot at the American Film Market, and Lynd says they’re hoping to get into Sundance to trigger a ‘decent level of interest.’ The producers are also eyeing next year’s Berlin International Film Festival.

It’s a busy week for Mongrel, which is also opening the acclaimed terrorism-themed documentary Terror’s Advocate in Toronto and Vancouver, in addition to Sidney Lumet’s suspense thriller Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead, playing at Toronto’s Varsity cinema.

Alliance Vivafilm’s blockbuster action film Nitro, which grossed more than $4 million at Quebec theatres, heads into English Canada this week, where it will play on one screen each in Toronto and Vancouver, at Square One and Grenville, respectively. The film stars Guillaume Lemay-Thivierge as a desperate man in a race against time to find a heart for his dying wife.

Alliance Films’ drama Love in the Time of Cholera, Brian De Palma’s Redacted, from Maximum Films, and Paramount Pictures’ CGI actioner Beowulf round out the week’s new releases.

Meanwhile, next Tuesday will see the DVD release of Alliance Vivafilm’s hit comedy Ma Tante Aline, while Toronto’s Sullivan Entertainment is releasing the documentary Diana: A Life to Remember, which it acquired from the U.K.’s IMC Vision.