Lionsgate and Summit Entertainment have announced a slew of changes and announcements for their upcoming releases. First, let’s briefly look at the release date shifts:

  • Power Rangers has been pushed from July 22, 2016 to a January 13, 2017 date.
  • American Ultra will be released wide on August 21, 2015.
  • La La Land has been given a prime summer date of July 15, 2016.
  • Dirty Grandpa has been moved up from August 2016 to February 26, 2016.
  • Criminal has been pushed from this August to January 22, 2016.
  • Gods of Egypt will now open a few months later than planned, on April 8, 2016.

The Power Rangers film is being released via Lionsgate, but the January date is a far cry from a high-profile summer release. X-Men: First Class scribes Ashley Miller and Zack Stentz are working on the screenplay and we recently learned that Project Almanac director Dean Israelite is in talks to take the helm, but he hasn’t yet been confirmed. Roberto Orci is onboard as executive producer, and this reboot is described as a “modern reinvention” of the property, which focuses on a group of ordinary high school kids who find themselves infused with extraterrestrial powers and must harness those powers as a team to save the world. Even if Lionsgate had little confidence in the project itself, a January release date for a high-profile reboot is baffling.


emma-stone-ryan-gosling
Image via Warner Bros.

On the flip side, Whiplash director Damien Chazelle’s Hollywood-set musical La La Land for Summit has been firmed up for a swell July 15, 2016 release date, opening opposite Ice Age 5. Summit confirms that Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone will be reteaming once again to star, taking over roles that were previously eyed for Miles Teller and Emma Watson. Chazelle wrote the screenplay for the pic, whose official synopsis follows below:

In this modern take on the Hollywood musical from Damien Chazelle, the Academy Award-nominated writer and director of WHIPLASH, Sebastian (Ryan Gosling) and Mia (Emma Stone) are drawn together by their common desire to do what they love.  But as success mounts they are faced with decisions that begin to fray the fragile fabric of their love affair, and the dreams they worked so hard to maintain in each other threaten to rip them apart.

The other big release date announcement is the action-comedy American Ultra, which boasts a screenplay by Chronicle scribe Max Landis and will open opposite Sinister 2. The movie stars Jesse Eisenberg and Kristen Stewart and revolves around a stoner and his girlfriend’s sleepy, small-town existence becoming disrupted when his past comes back to haunt him in the form of a government operation set to wipe him out.

clouds-of-sils-maria-image-kristen-stewart
Image via IFC Films