Release Date Tango: 'Piranha,' Muppets, 'Beastly'

Let's catch you up on a few release date changes and new announcements. It's been a very busy time for erasing the calendar, and this week there were a few major movies that were worthy of mention. Dinner for Schmucks has moved back a week and now opens July 30th. I think that's a strategic move and doesn't reflect poor quality. Those delays, as you'll see, are a lot longer. The new Piranha 3-D made a similar move, backing up to August 27th. Because that's a 3-D movie, it might be for technical releases, but we'll presume it's strategic, as well, just taking advantage of the films around it. There's also a release date for Disney's next Muppet movie, tentatively called The Muppets. That's going to be a holiday flick next year, with the studio locking in December 25, 2011, which is two days after Tintin and nine days after Alvin and the Chipmunks. So that's competitive. Hugo Cabret is also out that same month. I hope kids like movies in 18 months. And then there's Beastly, the CBS Films release starring Vanessa Hudgens that was slated for July 30th, and then Universal moved The Adjustment Bureau with Matt Damon from that weekend to September, replacing it with Zac Efron's Charlie St. Cloud. Obviously, you can't have Zac and Vanessa competiting for that weekend, so Beastly was taken off the calendar for the rest of the year and moved to March 2011. I have a feeling it won't make it then, either. CBS has issued two movies so far, The Back-Up Plan and Extraordinary Measures, and neither one made money. So I think CBS will probably want to re-examine whether or not it should keep trying the grand experiment before wasting resources on Beastly. I'm thinking this will be taken off the schedule completely in the next few months, and then it'll find a quiet DVD release. We're still waiting for Lionsgate to do something with Season of the Witch, the Nic Cage movie that was going to come out a couple months ago. It's very peculiar that the studio hasn't made a decision on where to put that yet.

Comments

[Anonymous]

The Dinner for Schmucks move doesn't necessarily inspire confidence either. Not in the way Knight & Day's move does.

[Get The Big Picture]

They're just doing it to give Inception two full weeks, and now they're not against Salt. I think Schmucks made the right move, given the environment in July.

[Anonymous]

True, but the only movie that should be worried about Inception is Salt, because they're both action films. Dinner for Schmucks is a comedy that would have functioned as counter-programming to both of those films, particularly since it would have been the first straight out comedy in four weeks since Grown Ups.

[Anonymous]

And another thing. The July 30th spot puts it only one week before the more appealing looking The Other Guys. So while two weeks after Inception will probably give it a higher opening weekend, it will probably take a heavier hit the second weekend.

[Get The Big Picture]

I'd say the thinking is that Inception will dwarf everything for a couple weeks, so on the 23rd, Schmucks wouldn't get a good jump. Yeah, it's a comedy, but there's a lot more audience share that would be taken away on its previous opening weekend by Salt and Inception than either one will grab a week later, especially when the other main film on the 30th is Cats & Dogs. I think that weekend strongly favors Schmucks. It still may not win outright, but it'll make more money then than it could on the 23rd.

As for The Other Guys, I wouldn't be the least bit afraid of Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg at this point. Ferrell has one $30 million-plus opening in four years, and Wahlberg has never carried an opening weekend on the strength of his name. Carrell and Rudd are actually more consistent with audiences recently.

I'm also not sure The Other Guys is the more appealing-looking movie. That isn't to say it won't beat Schmucks on August 6th, but I don't think Schmucks drops 60% or anything that weekend. Assuming it's good, of course.

[Anonymous]

Given the audiences I've seen both trailers with, The Other Guys has gotten more consistent positive reactions from audiences. Pretty much every time. Same with Grown Ups as well.

Don't get me wrong. There have been times when I've seen Dinner for Schmucks get positive reactions, which was with Robin Hood, but I've seen cases where the audience didn't seem to know what to think of it, like when I saw Get Him to the Greek.

[Anonymous]

And you're actually wrong about Will Ferrell only having one 30M+ opening in four years. He's had Talladega Nights (The Other Guys opens the same weekend it did), Blades of Glory, and Step Brothers, two of which were with Adam McKay. Land of the Lost was merely a misguided adaptation of a cheesy TV series. When he's with McKay he usually strikes gold.

In addition, we had Date Night, which was more appealing than Dinner for Schmucks looks, receive consistently positive audience reactions (from my experiences anyway), open to 25M with practically no competition opening before (Bounty Hunter was a non-factor at this point) and it's had really good legs because it faced no direct competition for weeks. And even with those facts, at this point, it looks to end up just under 100M.

[Get The Big Picture]

I think you and I disagree on what "appealing" means, because whenever I see that Other Guys trailer, it's Will Ferrell stuck in that same character again, handcuffed to Mr. Charisma Mark Wahlberg. And my four years, though I didn't say it, meant since Talladega Nights, though I had forgotten all about Blades of Glory. Just completely.

Date Night hitting $100 million is excellent, given its $25 million start. A 4X multiplier is nothing to sneeze at, especially for a comedy that aims 30+.