Holy, scheduling change, Batman! Warner Bros. has pushed Batman Vs. Superman back nearly a year from July 17, 2015 to May 6, 2016. Why? Boy howdy are they not saying much about that, other than to “allow the filmmakers time to realize fully their vision, given the complex visual nature of the story.” However, this is probably good news. It looked like they were rushing this movie to compete with Avengers: Age of Ultron. Now, they can finish their dang script.
This past summer was a best of times, worst of times situation for the Hollywood studios, with many collective and individual victories but too many big, embarrassing failures (R.I.P.D., The Lone Ranger, White House Down, Pacific Rim-domestically). As a result, Hollywood was supposed to learn to keep their budgets in check and not release so much similar product (animated films, comic book movies) in far too short a period of time. They were collectively taking too many risks, saturating the marketplace, and exhausting the audience, the same audience already annoyed by being gouged by 3D ticket prices.
Sadly, the summer of 2015 is shaping up to be even worse with all of the same problems. In recognition of this, multiple summer 2015 projects have been pushed back, chiefly sequels for Independence Day and Pirates of the Caribbean. Even with that and Batman Vs. Superman’s move, it’s still shaping up to be a big ole clusterfuck (in order of release):
April
• Insidious Chapter 3 (Focus) – 4/3
• The Longest Ride (Fox) – 4/3
• Passengers (2015) (W/Dim.) – 4/3
• Fast & Furious 7 (Uni.) – 4/10
May
• Avengers: Age of Ultron (BV) – 5/1
• Mad Max: Fury Road (WB) – 5/15
• Susan Cooper (Fox) – 5/22
• Tomorrowland (BV) – 5/22
• Monster Trucks (Par.) – 5/29
June
• B.O.O.: Bureau of Otherworldly Operations (Fox) – 6/5
• San Andreas (WB) – 6/5
• Jurassic World (Uni.) – 6/12
• The Fantastic Four (Fox) – 6/19
• Inside Out (BV) – 6/19
• Ted 2 (Uni.) – 6/26
July
• Terminator (2015) (Par.) – 7/1
• Minions (Uni.) – 7/10
• Pan (WB) – 7/17
• Trainwreck (Uni.) – 7/24
• Ant-Man (BV) – 7/31
• Peregrine’s Home for Peculiars (Fox) – 7/31
August
• Assassin’s Creed (Fox) – 8/7
• The Smurfs 3 (Sony) – 8/14
• Untitled Next Bourne Chapter (Uni.) – 8/14
• Regression (W/Dim.) – 8/28
That’s a bunch of comic book movies (Avengers, Fantastic Four, Ant-Man), animated/quasi-animated films (Monster Trucks, BOO, Minions, Smurfs 3, Teds 2), franchise reboots (Terminator, Fantastic Four, Jurassic World, Mad Max, Pan), and a couple of sequels to lackluster films (another Bourne, Insidious). Thank God Melissa McCarthy will be around to give us at least one solid comedy (Susan Cooper) from her Bridesmaids/The Heat director Paul Feig.
Guess they’re going to have to change the year at the bottom, huh?
Removing Batman Vs. Superman from that equation does yield the market to Marvel (Ant-Man, Avengers) and Fox-controlled Marvel (Fantastic Four). However, it also saves Batman Vs. Superman from having to go head-to-head with Ant-Man just two weeks after its release. Plus, if Batman Vs. Superman is to be the Justice League-light movie as rumored it might be better off putting distance between itself and Marvel’s well-established superhero team-up brand Avengers to avoid unfavorable comparisons.
Here’s the problem with that logic, though: for some reason (mostly likely just to be pricks and stick it to them) WB picked May 6, 2016 as Batman Vs. Superman‘s new release date. What is already scheduled to come out on the day? A currently untitled Marvel Phase Three super hero film (perhaps Doctor Strange?). On top of that, Fox has X-Men: Apocalypse schedule to come out a couple of weeks later at the end of May. Not to go too school yard on WB, but Marvel most certainly got there first. In fact (from THR):
“The early May berth has been associated with Marvel since Columbia released Spider-Man in 2002. X2, the X-Men sequel from Fox, followed the following year. Marvel has released all of its Iron Man movies in that time frame as well as Thor. In fact, a Marvel-based movie has come out each May since 2006. Additionally, that weekend is so connected to a comic book movie that retailers in North America organize a yearly Free Comic Book Day on the Saturday.”
So, what the hell is WB up to with this nonsense? Running away from The Avengers to team up their heroes against an easier foe to pick on, like a Doctor Strange or Captain Marvel movie (assuming Marvel is using the date to launch a new character and not a sequel to an existing one)? That will work itself. We have pleeeeeeeenty of time between now and then for the respective studios to switch dates again.
Man of Steel director Zack Snyder
The one thing time cannot necessarily on its own change is who is making this movie: Zack Snyder. If they get a better script from Chris Terrio’s (Argo) re-writes of David S. Goyer’s initial draft that would be fantastic (quick point: the Pirates of the Caribbean sequel was also pushed back due to script issues, at least officially). They would have benefited from a little more time with Goyer’s Man of Steel script. However, if it all goes through Snyder then this is still the guy who gives amazing visuals with little substance and enjoys at best minimal success with his handling of female characters.
But beyond the director WB/DC could use the extra time to just figure out what the hell it is that they are doing. Is this a straight Man of Steel sequel that happens to co-star Batman and Wonder Woman? Are they all equal leads? Is it setting up a Justice League movie? If so, who will be involved with that (director, screenplay, cast), and how much should any of those characters feature in Batman Vs. Superman? Also, settle on an official title already since Batman Vs. Superman probably won’t be what they end up calling it. Or are they maybe just pushing this back because they really do intend to film Batman Vs. Superman back-to-back with a Justice League movie and need the extra time?
However, with the current people involved will any amount of waiting truly make this thing work? We have a quite a bit more time to debate that now. What do you think? Let us know in the comments.