Release Date Changes: Get Ready for 1-18-08

By Katey Rich

Last week a ton of new release date changes were announced, finally giving shape to the bleak January and February we expect at the end of the awards season brouhaha. There's so much to go through, so let's do talking points.

Is January 18 the new July 4th weekend? We've heard the phrase "1-18-08" for months now in connection with J.J. Abrams' Cloverfield; it was the stand-in title for a while, the name of the viral marketing website, and a central part of the promotional campaign. If it's possible to have a tentpole opening in January, this is it: It's got as much buzz as a huge studio effort like I Am Legend. Now two new projects have set their sights on January 18 as well: Teeth and Mad Money. The more interesting of these is Teeth, a Sundance hit with a plot so provocative you can only describe it in euphemism. Jess Weixler stars as a teenage girl who wants to become sexually active, but as it turns out, she has teeth, uh, you know where. See what I mean? Teeth had been scheduled for a fall release but will now duke it out against Cloverfield (Mad Money, a crime caper starring Diane Keaton, Queen Latifah and Katie Holmes,seems a little too packed with kooky antics for my taste). Somehow it seems that Teeth's gamble might work. Sure, it's competing for the same young male audience (what teenage boy doesn't want to see a movie with a vagina as a major plot point?), but Teeth will likely start out in limited release and build cachet from there. The Teeth and Cloverfield one-two punch could actually make January interesting for once.

Wait, I take that back. Meet the Spartans, a spoof with a trailer here in case it's not already evident what it's about, is coming out January 25. So January will instantly become uninteresting again.

I just had to type the phrase Saw V into a calendar, and I feel dirty about it. I knew it was coming. We all knew it was coming. Still, do I really have to start thinking about the next Saw before this year is even over? You even know the release date already-- October 24, the weekend before Halloween. Happy now?

James McAvoy gets kicked around the calendar. With Atonement reaping lots of buzz and McAvoy getting lauded for his performance, both of his upcoming projects have had their release dates shifted in apparent anticipation of his rising star. First there's Penelope, which has been hanging around waiting for a release date for over a year. It's now been moved to open the Friday before the Oscars ceremony, where McAvoy is looking increasingly likely to be up for Best Actor. The romantic comedy, also starring Christina Ricci and Reese Witherspoon, probably doesn't have what it takes to become a big hit, so it makes sense to try and ride whatever tailwind there is from McAvoy's success. Probably not much, but it could make a difference. Wanted, on the other hand, is a mega-budget action thriller in which McAvoy plays an assassin opposite Angelina Jolie and Morgan Freeman. It was originally slated for a March release, the kind of counter-programming blockbuster slot that made 300 a hit. Now it's been moved to June 27, smack-dab in the middle of summer and up against the Tom Cruise-Bryan Singer project Valkyrie and Wall-E, the latest from Pixar. Wow-- talk about your signs of faith. It might not be all McAvoy's doing, but clearly Universal is betting he can be a leading man to beat Tom Cruise. Time will tell if the gamble pays off.

It's gonna live forever. In the oddest release date I've seen yet, the remake of Fame has been set for a Christmas Day release next year. Huh? Is this Alien vs. Predator-style counter-programming, for the audiences who aren't busying themselves with end-of-the-year highbrow fare? But still, that's the same date as Star Trek 11, the hugely-buzzed J.J. Abrams that will bookend a likely big year. There's virtually no information available about Fame-- I don't even know if they've started filming-- so color me puzzled until someone explains this one to me.