With many productions halted due to COVID-19 and the 2021 release schedule greatly in need of product, Warner Bros has shifted a slew of theatrical release dates.
Matt Reeves’ The Batman, which is currently stalled in London, will no longer open on June 25, 2021 next summer, but rather in the first weekend of October next year, October 1, a slot made famous by DC’s R-rated The Joker. Reeves told us recently that once it’s safe to resume production, the plan is to finish The Batman in London instead of re-locating. A quarter of the film is shot, and Reeves is currently sifting through footage.
Batman moves onto a date where both Paramount and 20th Century Studios have untitled movies.
DC’s movie version of The Flash will go a month earlier in 2022, debuting on June 3, a date that Warners already reserved, instead of July 1 that year. Shazam 2!, which was dated on April 1, 2022, now goes on November 4 of that year. Disney has an untitled live-action movie on that fall date currently.
Baz Luhrmann’s untitled Elvis Presley movie starring Tom Hanks had that October 1 date, and will now go a month later on November 5, 2021 against Disney/Marvel’s Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.
The Sopranos feature prequel The Many Saints of Newark, originally dated for September 25 of this year, heads to March 12 next year versus Disney’s animated movie Raya and the Last Dragon.
The Will Smith drama King Richard, which was shooting in Los Angeles, will now go a year later on November 19, 2021 instead of November 25 this year. On that pre-Thanksgiving weekend, King Richard will share the marquee with Paramount’s Dungeons & Dragons and an untitled Disney live-action movie.
Notching a new date: Lisa Joy’s Hugh Jackman-Thandie Newton-Rebecca Ferguson sci-fi movie Reminiscence on April 16, 2021. Warners already had that date in the books for an untitled feature; it will now come up against Sony Pictures Animation’s Lin-Manuel Miranda musical Vivo, and an untitled Universal feature.
Temporarily undated for now is Shaka King’s untitled Fred Hampton movie about the Black Panther party member, which was set to open on August 21 this year. Daniel Kaluuya stars as Hampton alongside LaKeith Stanfield, Martin Sheen, Lil Rel Howery and Jesse Plemons.