New Poster and Trailer for Long-Delayed 'Inkheart'

We've finally got some news on Inkheart, the young adult action-adventure fantasy starring Brendan Fraser that was plucked off the 2008 schedule back at the beginning of the year. Now, the only thing worse than being pulled of the release schedule a couple months before hitting theaters is being pushed back nine months to the dead zone of early January. Welcome to the suck, Inkheart. This past January, New Line announced that the movie would not open in 2008, but at some point indeterminate in '09. The move was partially because of all the changes at New Line this year, aftershocks of silly things like lawsuits from Lord of the Rings and expensive moves that didn't pay off as handsomely as the company would've liked (The Golden Compass). But moving it to the second weekend in January? Well, that generally means the movie's not very good. Don't believe me? Here are the films that have opened in wide release within the first ten days of January since 2005: White Noise, Hostel, BloodRayne, Grandma's Boy, Happily N'ever After, Code Name: The Cleaner, Freedom Writers, Home of the Brave, and One Missed Call. So what's the ceiling for Inkheart? Somewhere between Grandma's Boy and Freedom Writers? In defense of Inkheart, the trailer's not that bad. I mean, you wouldn't look at it and think, "Yeah, first ten days of January" or "How about Labor Day?" It's got big effects, Paul Bettany, Andy Serkis, Helen Mirren, and Encino Man. Take a look for yourself. So what gives? Is it going to be lousy? I dunno; it doesn't look irredeemable. Maybe New Line's just tired of dealing with it, knows it'll lose money, and believes putting it on the most wide open weekend is kind of the most hopeful thing they can do with it at this point. That sounds reasonable. But what if it's good and nobody sees it, because nobody goes to the movies on those first two weekends of the year?

Comments

[John M.]

Inkheart was a great book and Cornelia Funke is a really sweet woman. I feel bad for her that they are sorta screwing over the movie adaptation of it. I would have thought they would try to time the movie with the release of the 3rd book in the series, but that comes out at the end of this month. At least they are actually making and releasing this movie in the states. Her last movie adaptation was The Thief Lord which I think was only done in theatres in Europe, but is available on DVD here. I don't actually know many people that have seen it or even heard of it.

[starlowski]

"Unicorns... flying monkeys... Brendan Fraser..."

Seems fun, although part of that fun will be seeing whether George of the Jungle is out acted by the ferrets...