Universal Delays WARCRAFT, PACIFIC RIM 2, and More
At CinemaCon, Universal rearranged some of the biggest movies on its upcoming release schedule and ended up delaying some highly-anticipated projects in the process. Duncan Jones' Warcraft, which wrapped filming about a year ago and was initially slated for a December 2015 release, had already been pushed to March of 2016 (presumably due to the assumed holiday dominance of Star Wars: The Force Awakens), but now his film will debut on June 10th, 2016. Jones seems to be in good spirits about the move, though, and it certainly shows promise that Universal thinks the film will be able to compete in a busy summer blockbuster season.
Guillermo del Toro's Pacific Rim 2, originally set to drop on April 7th, 2017, has been kicked back to August 4th. The VFX-heavy movie will likely benefit from the added time, so we're still hoping for the best with that one as it's supposed to set up a third movie in that franchise.
The Universal Monster movies, set to kick off a new cinematic universe, have been bumped back also, with The Mummy reboot dropping back nine whole months from June 24th, 2016 to March 24th, 2017. There's also an untitled second Monster movie in the works that was set for a April 21th, 2017 debut but now will arrive on March 30th, 2018.
And finally, the studio announced that the Doug Liman/Tom Cruise drug thriller Mena will hit theaters on January 6th, 2017, and the Fifty Shades of Grey sequels — Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed, respectively — arrive on February 10th, 2017, and February 9th, 2018. So update your calendars, movie fans: we have a crazy few years ahead of us.