Warner Bros. shifted their slate around a bit today which resulted in new release dates for a trio of their films.

  • Director Clint Eastwood's film American Sniper, starring Bradley Cooper, will now open in select theaters on Christmas Day.
  • Guy Ritchie's adaptation of The Man from U.N.C.L.E., which stars Armie Hammer and Henry Cavill, will now open on August 14th, 2015.
  • The Point Break remake, directed by Ericson Core, will hit theaters on July 31st 2015.

Hit the jump for more on these release date changes.

american-sniper-bradley-cooper

First up is Eastwood's American Sniper, which has been a passion project for the filmmaker ever since he inherited control of it from Steven Spielberg.  Per THR, Warner Bros. and Village Roadshow will now open the film on Christmas Day before going into wider release on January 16th.  This move indicates a vote of confidence for the film on behalf of the studio as the clearly want it to be eligible for awards season (it also doesn't hurt that people won't stop giving prizes to Eastwood even though his best directorial efforts, like The Unforgiven, seem to be a ways behind him).  The film is an adaptation of Navy SEAL Chris Kyle's book, American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History.  Kyle was killed in a friendly fire accident last year.

Next is Guy Ritchie's The Man from U.N.C.L.E., which gets another vote-of-confidence move from January 16th, 2015 to August 14th of that year.  I'm rooting for Ritchie despite the fact that I don't care for his Sherlock Holmes films, here's hoping U.N.C.L.E. is an improvement.  The summer date indicates that that studio at least doesn't dislike it.

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Image via 20th Century Fox

Finally, Ericson Core's Point Break remake has shifted back only slightly, from August 7th 2015 to July 31st 2015.  I would say this is a vote-of-confidence thing too, but who are we kidding?  There's no other time of year to release this remake.  Even if this film focusses more on "extreme sports" than surfing, that's still summer material.  I don't see how this can top Kathryn Bigelow's 1991 original (as much as I actually like new cast members Teresa Palmer and Ray Winstone).