Just looking at next year’s release schedule and the passionate battles being fought over release date real estate is already giving me a headache.
I get it. 2012 is going to be a huge year, especially if you’re a mainstream genre nerd. Each and every weekend will be carefully scrutinized, and there are some giant gambles the studios are making, and they want to make sure that they’ve got room for their films to find their audiences.
When the story broke recently that Ridley Scott will be making “Prometheus,” the film that evolved out of what was once a prequel to “Alien,” 20th Century Fox also announced a release date of March 9, 2012. That part of the year has become a fairly important date for the studios, and once Fox had claimed the date, suddenly Disney announced that they’ll be releasing “John Carter Of Mars” on the exact same day.
So it shouldn’t be a huge surprise to see that “Prometheus” has now moved, and it’s sort of funny that they’d be heading to June 8, 2012 instead, since that is the date “John Carter” used to have.
It looks like Fox is getting into the Michael Fassbender business in a big way, betting on him as the young Magneto in ‘X-Men First Class’ and now also casting him as an android for “Prometheus.”
No matter what, every weekend is going to be a battle next year. I’m glad Fox moved the film, though. It seems suicidal to me for two giant studio SF films to try to compete for the same exact three days, when I know I plan to see both of those films. I assume the audience in general would be interested in both. Why cannibalize your own business by engaging in that sort of direct head-to-head combat?
I’m not sure what direct competition they’ll have, but it looks like “Prometheus” will land sometime between “The Avengers” and the new “Spider-Man” film. It’ll be one big giant summer… so let’s hope the films live up to that.