'Dragonball' Gets New Release Date

All you Dragonball fans won't have to wait nearly as long to see the big screen adaptation of the anime classic. That's right: 20th Century Fox is moving up its release date two whole days!If you're looking for a strategy as to why the film would open in the middle of the week - and why Fox would make that determination five months early - about the best argument I can come up with is that April 10, 2009 is Good Friday and that April 12th is Easter. I think that can make a difference in the film's box office, and I'll use the unlikely comparison of Pineapple Express.That film was moved from a Friday debut to a Wednesday because of the Olympics, and it exploded on opening night, making $12 million, or about 14% of its total domestic gross in one day. While Dragonball does not strictly speaking cater to the same audience, the overwhelming majority of its ticket buyers will be between 16 and 30, and even though it might seem strange to give this movie a head start on a religious holiday, it appears to be counterprogramming more against the calendar than the competition.You could also go back to about ten days ago when the youth-oriented High School Musical and Zack and Miri both had terrible Friday nights on Halloween, but rebounded once normal audience figures returned. Again, not necessarily the same group of people, but we're talking primarily about people under 30. In the case of Zack and Miri, not having a big Halloween push has really hindered its overall box office performance. Right now, Dragonball is squaring off the Seth Rogen-Anna Faris comedy Observe and Report and the Renee Zellweger flick Case 39, so unless it just gets hammered by early fan reviews, Dragonball has a leg up over the other films. Fox has maintained a positive outlook for this film through rumors that it was never going to be released, confirmed reshoots, and a dogpile of criticism about the film's casting and storyline. So maybe the studio knows something about this one having huge box office potential that we don't.Of course, if that were true, it wouldn't need to move for anybody. Or Anybody, in this case.