Holiday Movies Move Up Their Release Dates
It’s only a matter of a few days, but some of this year’s holiday movies are juggling their release dates, moving them up in an attempt to better capitalize on holiday theater traffic. Both of this holiday season’s films that are directed by Steven Spielberg will be coming just a little earlier.
The Adventures of Tintin – Spielberg’s collaboration with producer Peter Jackson, based on the beloved comics character – will open two days earlier, on Dec. 21st. This puts it in direct competition with David Fincher‘s The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and the franchise action movie Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, starring Tom Cruise and directed by Brad Bird (of The Incredibles and Ratatouille fame). Ghost Protocol is also getting a jump on the competition, however, as it will now also be releasing five days earlier on IMAX screens in about 300 locations.
Meanwhile, Spielberg’s other holiday film, War Horse – about a boy and his horse, separated from each other during World War I – is moving from a Dec. 28 release date to open on Christmas Day. DreamWorks spokesman Chip Sullivan commented, “After seeing the film, it became clear to us that War Horse is something audiences should be able to see when they’re together with their families on Christmas Day. They have the time to see multiple movies during the holidays, and we want to be one of their choices when they are most available.”
(via EW.com)
I suppose after Reed Hastings told us he was sorry Netflix subscribers didn’t like what he wasn’t sorry for doing, Chip Sullivan’s statement is part of the new normal. “Families should see this movie together, and we hope to make more money by opening it when they should all be together.” Who has been vetting these kinds of things for public release?
Anyway, I can’t help but wonder if this doesn’t also indicate a lack of confidence in the films scheduled to precede these. Dreamworks, for instance, has Puss in Boots scheduled to open 4 November–well ahead of Disney’s The Muppets. It seems Dreamworks is outright conceding Thanksgiving weekend, but want to stake a claim on Christmas.
Likewise, Paramount has inched Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol ever closer to Universal’s Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (9 December), which suggests they might be smelling blood in the water, pitting their glamorized spy movie against the more grounded le Carre adaptation.
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