It isn’t all that strange for a movie with an A-list lead and decent supporting cast to be moved in the midst of the summer movie blockbuster season, but Universal’s decision to bump Lucy up two weeks is a pretty clear sign that this is a Guardians of the Galaxy summer and we’re all just living in it. Lucy, starring Scarlett Johansson as a mysterious woman with a brain-boosting blue goo leaking in her stomach, was originally scheduled for an August 8 release, which would have had it competing with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles reboot and Into the Storm, which caused more people in my X-Men: Days of Future Past theater to shout, “Hey, it’s Twister!” than any tornado movie since 1996.
Instead, Lucy will take on Brett Ratner’s Hercules movie that has Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and his beard screaming their way through battles against cartoonishly huge monsters, as well as the Jason Segal/Cameron Diaz comedy Sex Tape, and the very, very necessary Step Up All In, which finally answers the question: Who are the a-holes still paying to see dance battle movies? So is this decision to move Lucy up two weeks a matter of strategy that would suggest TMNT is more powerful than the year’s second Hercules film, or is it a preemptive move to get out of the way of the eventual Marvel box office steamroller, Guardians of the Galaxy?
Only time and ticket receipts will tell, so let’s just spend the next few minutes looking at Johansson kicking a lot of ass like a cross between Neo and another movie character who could suddenly access all of his or her brain powers in the latest international trailer for Lucy.