There have been some release date shake-ups at the House of Mouse as Disney has dated GHOST IN THE SHELL, pushed THE JUNGLE BOOK, and moved some other films around their slate. The Disney shuffle should come as no surprise as studios adjust their pre-announced film dates all the time to better position themselves at the box office, but this news marks the second JUNGLE BOOK film to move release dates.
Previously, Andy Serkis' directorial debut JUNGLE BOOK: ORIGINS pushed it's date from October 21, 2016 to October 6, 2017. Now, Jon Favreau's all-star voice cast version featuring Idris Elba, Ben Kingsley, Bill Murray, and many more is moving from October 9, 2015 to April 15, 2016. The October 9th spot will be replaced with the Chris Pine-led disaster flick THE FINEST HOURS.
Disney also announced that the Scarlett Johansson led live action GHOST IN THE SHELL will hit theaters on April 14, 2017 and the remake of PETE'S DRAGON from AIN'T THEM BODIES SAINTS director David Lowery and starring Michael C. Hall, Wes Bentley, Bryce Dallas Howard and Robert Redford will come to theaters on Aug. 12, 2016.
There seems to be a pattern emerging with films announcing release dates to lock in a weekend from any competition only to have the release pushed anywhere from six months to a full year for development purposes. While I am fine with filmmakers getting more time to get their movies done the right way, it almost seems unnecessary and a waste of good memo-writing skills to even announce the date until they are sure what is going to happen on the creative and production side. Still, we know Hollywood is set in their ways and slow to adopt new thinking. That is unless it is converting films to 3D as all four of these movies will be released in the high end format.
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