The Latest Date Changes 2: The New Batch

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Sony going to be releasing a movie about the Gamestop/Steve Cohen feud that was news for a week before everyone who's not a gamer forgot all about it. They've paid $20 million for the worldwide rights to Dumb Money, directed by Craig Gillespie and starring Sebastian Stan and Pete Davidson (the latter hoping to become the newest actor studio executives love but not many others even care about).

Who exactly is the audience for this? The documentary on the same subject released earlier this year was dead on arrival and the era of having every studio film be focused on rich guys winning (the trend seemingly started by Iron Man) is on the way out. Also, there are far more interesting subjects involving money or power that would be better movies than this.

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Regal's doing another Mystery Movie on November 7th. Let the speculation begin.

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Just as I expected, there's going to be another Fathom Events release involving The Chosen. The first two episodes of the show's third season will be released theatrically on November 18th, likely to be split into two episodes once it leaves theatres and hits the myriad of channels and streaming services that have rights to distribute the show.

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Paramount's making another attempt at a Last Airbender movie with Avatar: The Legend of Aang, an animated feature now in production in Australia. Seeing how weak Paramount Animation's track record has been, I wouldn't expect much of an improvement from Shyamalan's attempt, though I'm sure fans will be tricked into seeing it like they were the last time.

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Paramount has dated 80 for Brady for a theatrical release on February 3rd.

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That could explain Tom Brady's leave of absence during training camp.

And apparently, it's going to be on Paramount+ the same day (Paramount hasn't made it official but is expected to), so it might not go very wide.

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Remember when Seth MacFarlane was trying to sell Paramount on the idea of rebooting The Naked Gun with Liam Neeson as Frank Drebin? Well, it's happening now but Akiva Schaffer is now at the helm. Not sure if MacFarlane is staying on as a producer or not.

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House Party has been pushed back to January 13th

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I knew that wasn't going to make its date, as nothing has been released for it. But maybe that's exactly what Warner Bros. is planning to do: dump the film with almost no marketing or awareness.

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While I'm not confident it will do anything regardless of the aggressiveness of its marketing, House Party has a far better chance of finding an audience in January than it did in December where it would've gotten swallowed up Avatar on its 2nd weekend and likely would've been down to 1-2 showings per day by Christmas.

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At least the poster's not bad. We don't see too many poster designs done by hand anymore.

And speaking of remakes, Disney has a White Men Can't Jump remake coming out next year. It will likely be exclusive to Hulu.

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I knew that wasn't going to make its date, as nothing has been released for it. But maybe that's exactly what Warner Bros. is planning to do: dump the film with almost no marketing or awareness.

While I'm not confident it will do anything regardless of the aggressiveness of its marketing, House Party has a far better chance of finding an audience in January than it did in December where it would've gotten swallowed up Avatar on its 2nd weekend and likely would've been down to 1-2 showings per day by Christmas.

I think House Party could do okay business. There was a red-band trailer shown before my print of Halloween Ends, and it got a good reception from the audience (actually, the best reception I've seen for a comedy trailer in the past few years). If it reviews decently, I believe it could do 45-50 m in total.

One kind of concerning thing is that it is opening against M3gan, which has a lot of hype around it at the moment (and also got a rather large reaction from the audience at Halloween). It will also be facing off against the second wide-release weekend of Babylon, which while not assured to be a success, could pose serious competition if everything goes right for it.

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You think everything's going to be a hit and it's ridiculous. Do you not realize that there are other forms of entertainment and that there are streaming titles that are up to par or even surpass some theatrical releases and that's leading a lot of people to stay home? Case in point: Disney released Barbarian into theatres between Prey and Hellraiser, both of which were Hulu premieres. Much was made of Barbarian's near $40 million gross, as it showed that a non-sequel horror film, especially on that was originally intended for streaming, could do well. But Prey and Hellraiser would have surpassed that mark had those films been theatrical. Yes, Hellraiser had a mixed response but it had branding on its side.

As for M3gan, remember the Child's Play remake? This is the exact same thing, only from a bigger studio. Horror fans will hype up anything (*cough*Terrifier 2*cough*) but it rarely translates to box office. If any forthcoming Universal horror title does well, it's probably going to be Knock at the Cabin. Shyamalan is a mainstream name and Dave Bautista has some audience appeal. The only issue is that Universal might reduce the ad budget because of Bros flopping but that one was less on audiences and more on Universal trying to sell it like an R-rated sitcom.

And on Babylon, Chazelle lost a lot of his fanbase with First Man and the film itself looks like it's trying way to hard to be a Baz Luhrmann film. In addition, audiences have rarely flocked to movies focused on the inner workings of Hollywood. It needs another hook to bring audiences in but I can't find it at all (Is it Margot Robbie chewing scenery? Is it the NC-17-rated content Chazelle is promising? Or is it just three hours of expensive but empty chaos?).

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Creed III is getting IMAX screens on March 3rd. But also, there is an apparent rumor that Creed III will be on Prime the same day as its theatrical debut, as Prime Video's Twitter feed joined MGM's Twitter feed to post the teaser posters. However, this might just be Prime promoting its streaming release later in the year.

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Taking of note the mixed reviews but positive audience reception at Venice, The Son will now open limited on November 25th before expanding wide on December 16th.

Related to Sony, A Man Called Otto will now open limited on Christmas Day before expanding wide on January 13th. If Sony does a decent push (which isn't a guarantee, see Lyle Lyle Crocodile), it could be the top opener in its wide break.