Poor, poor Benicio Del Toro. A former resident of last February, last April and this coming November, his take on The Wolf Man has been bumped back to next February now. That’s right: for all the re-scheduling and re-shoots, Joe Johnston’s version of the classic monster movie has all but lapped itself on the release slate, hoping to serve as R-rated counter-programming on February 12th, 2010 to Valentine’s Day fare and maybe rake in the kind of opening weekend that Friday the 13th had this year ($40 million — albeit followed by a steep 80% drop in attendance).
Variety’s piece about the shift also brings to light how the rest of Universal’s slate looks to play out for now. Of most interest (to me anyway) is the reunion of director Paul Greengrass and star Matt Damon for The Bourne Insurgency Green Zone. I may or may not have heard only positive rumblings on an early cut of the film, but a March 12th date suggests that this thriller might not be as worthy of an awards push as most of us would’ve assumed. (Colleagues were quick to point out that David Fincher’s Zodiac found itself in similar straits.)
Jude Law’s Reposession Mambo (possibly lending itself to confusion with a new title of Repo Men) has a vague first-quarter placement next year. The untitled Nancy Meyers project is now called It’s Complicated, still stars Meryl Streep and Alec Baldwin, and is still on target for this Christmas, while some Milla Jovovich alien-abduction thriller called The Fourth Kind will apparently fill The Wolf Man’s void this November. Last and probably least: Jon Favreau has Tweeted that he’s off for some Couples Retreat reshoots tomorrow — a film still on schedule for an October 9th bow. Who knows, maybe they have a whole scene about Michael Jackson to work around…
[b]Update: So far as non-Universal releases go, Box Office Mojo claims that Gerard Butler and Jamie Foxx’s Law Abiding Citizen has just been moved up from a release next March to this October 16th. Hmmm, on the tail of Butler’s own Gamer the month before and up against the teen-drawing remake of The Stepfather and the theoretically older-crowd-grabbing adaptation of The Road, eh? So many thrillers, so little time.[/b]
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[b]GB.NET NOTE: The release date for Law Abiding Citizen has yet to be finalized. The above is not definite.[/b][/color]