'Wolf Man' Delayed? OK by Me

We don't have a confirmation of this from the studio, which would be the voice that really matters, but since it's polluting the blogosphere, we thought we'd chime in. Fangoria says that Universal will wait to release The Wolf Man until fall 2009, moving from an April 3rd release date. I say, good move.Let's try to keep all the things in perspective that need to be. For starters, it is scheduled to be released a week after Monsters vs. Aliens. That thing looks to me like a world beater and frankly, if I had a pretty expensive gamble like Wolf Man, I'd try to create some distance, too. That's particularly true of Universal next year, where the studio is light on mass appeal blockbusters. It's a rather interesting crop, but not one that's going to do a billion dollars here at home.So by taking your most high profile movie of the year, which happens to be a monster movie, and putting it near Halloween...probably makes more sense than releasing it during Lent. I'm just sayin'. It also allows Universal time to build the marketing for their biggest flick of the year, which really would need to start no later than the end of February if they kept it at April 3rd.The movie has a great cast - Benicio Del Toro, Anthony Hopkins, and Emily Blunt - and I have no doubt that if it came out in April, it would do well. Unfortunately, once that mammoth May starts, you'll see what happened to the studio's Hellboy II in the wake of The Dark Knight happen all over again. The faucet will be turned off pretty quickly.If you move it to early- to mid-October, you'll have a much better run in the fourth, fifth, and sixth weekends, I'd think. And, your opening weekend could be really big if you put it on the currently unoccupied October 9th.

Comments

[Asana]

I'm just going to toss it on out there... why? Not why in terms of the release date move but why Wolf Man period? Has there really been that great a clamor to bring this character to the fore? Or is this just more of Hollywood being completely bereft of any idea remotely original? The cast is fine I suppose (you forgot to toss Hugo Weaving in there) but if no one cares for the story being told it flops. That this flick is squarely in a niche market to begin with will only make a flop that much more noticeable.

Though I'm getting well ahead of things in speculating it as doomed to fail. It could be a great film in the end but I just don't see a point of it. Given the average profit motive behind most any film with well known stars attached... this just seems to fly against the grain to me. Perhaps Universal is aiming more for substance which is refreshing in itself and if you consider films like Changeling and Frost/Nixon there is a sort of theme in that direction. Not a blockbuster theme but perhaps one that garners awards and acclaim for the studio.

[Lengthy Johnson]

The film looks really promising. It seems to be really well made and has a lot of good actors in it.

On the other hand, I think the studios are using so much boxofficeology these days that it's beginning to look like astrology and superstition.

If you make a good movie and advertise it well then people will see it anyway.

[Get The Big Picture]

I think the reason to do it, from Universal's standpoint, is that they became a big studio in the first place because of all of the classic horror movies. They're not remaking Dracula anytime soon - although, after Twilight, that might happen soon enough - but Guillermo Del Toro has Frankenstein on his very long to-do list for Universal, and the studio has already profited enormously from The Mummy franchise.

And they're all different. <I>The Mummy is obviously what it is, Del Toro's movie would be way out there, and this looks like it's made in the classic tradition. I do agree with you, Asana, that it's probably not the monster movie most audience members have been waiting for, but that goes back to why Universal could consider moving it. Because it's not a guaranteed hit, I think you need to make sure it has the right release date and all the rest.

[Lengthy Johnson]

What is the right release date?

To become a true block buster, a movie must hit the elusive zeitgeist of the audience.

These days, movie fans follow the whole process from pre-production to post production. The natural climax of this process is the release, which should be shrouded in anticipation.

Holding back the finished film will disrupt the normal process of building anticipation and there are no guarantees that the film will sit better with audiences next year.

In the past, studios would mainly hold back completed films if they were so crap that they didn't know what to do with them.

[Get The Big Picture]

We've seen a lot of shifting of release dates lately, and I think it's helped Twilight and Quantum of Solace, which were small but crucial moves, and it will probably not hurt Harry Potter or Star Trek, two movies that fell back several months.

We don't even know if Wolf Man has actually been stalled, just a report that it might be. And I think that would work out fine in this case.