In addition to release dates for Furious 8 and the Fifty Shades of Grey sequels, Universal Pictures also announced a few other alterations for some of its highest profile upcoming releases. Director Duncan Jones’ (Moon) video game adaptation Warcraft will now arrive in theaters on June 10, 2016, pushing three months from its initial early March release date. While it’s a bummer that we’ll have to wait a while longer to see the film, this is a vote of confidence from Universal—they clearly believe it can perform well in the heat of the summer blockbuster season. It also just so happens to move the pic further away from Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.
The effects-heavy Warcraft is now slated to open directly opposite Now You See Me 2, the horror sequel The Conjuring 2, and another video game adaptation: Sony’s Uncharted. I expect one or more of those pictures will move. Jones’ film stars Dominic Cooper, Travis Fimmell, Paula Patton, and Ben Foster and gives equal screentime to the humans and the orcs, the latter of whom are being brought to life using performance-capture technology.
Additionally, we’ll have to wait considerably longer for Guillermo del Toro’s action sequel Pacific Rim 2, but the release date shift is another good sign from Universal. Instead of opening in April 2017, the pic will now be released on August 4, 2017—or as it shall henceforth be known, “Guardians of the Galaxy weekend.” The pic currently has the weekend all to itself, but is scheduled to open a week after Sony and Marvel’s new Spider-Man reboot.
Elsewhere, The Mummy has been pushed back 9 months, moving from June 2016 to March 24, 2017. Alex Kurtzman—one of the screenwriters behind the Transformers films and the first two Star Trek movies—is set to direct the redo, which will kick off Universal’s new interconnected “monster franchise”. As a result of the release date shift, the second Untitled Universal Monster Franchise Film has been moved to March 30, 2018.
And finally, Mena—a thriller that reunites star Tom Cruise with Edge of Tomorrow director Doug Liman—has been slated for the not-so-confident January 6, 2017. Based on the true story that led to the Iran-Contra scandal and the rise of the Medellin cartel, Cruise stars as a pilot recruited by the CIA to lead one of the biggest covert operations in the history of the United States.
