It’s that time of the year when studios take some inventory, see where they’re at with certain projects and make adjustments. Paramount Pictures is the first to make some major moves this year. The biggest news of all the release date shifts this week is the fact that “Transformers 7” (technically ‘6’ following the 5th film ‘The Last Knight’) has been pulled from the release schedule. Originally slated for a June 28, 2019 release, the untitled “Transformers” film has been yanked and that’s likely because they haven’t announced a director or screenwriters and a gigantic movie like that probably needs to start pre-production now in time to be ready for next summer. In fact, it’s unclear if Paramount even has a script (or a plan) for the next “Transformers” movie now that Michael Bay and writer/producer Akiva Goldsman—once set to take over from Bay and become the Kevin Feige-like architect of their cinematic universe—left the series.
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In the meantime, they at least have the “Bumblebee” prequel, set in the 1980s, ready for a December release of this year from director Travis Knight to fill the gap, but it looks like no additional ‘Transformers’ films until 2020 which is likely a pain for a studio that’s hoping to make this into a bigger universe with one film released a year at least. There are rumors that the “Transformers” universe will totally reboot itself (instead of the soft reboots it’s been doing so far) after “Bumblebee” and perhaps this explains the delay.
Instead Paramount will release Tiffany Haddish’s comedy “Limited Partners” on the now vacant date left by the “Transformers” film. Additional Par moves include moving up the new “Pet Sematary” remake up two weeks to April 5, 2019, and dating the Elton John “Rocketman” biopic starring Taron Egerton for May 17, 2019.
Meanwhile, over at Warner Bros., the studio has delayed the release of the Mark Wahlberg’s genre action film “The Six Billion Dollar Man” by a year, moving the opening from May 31, 2019, to June 5, 2020. The move is no surprise. “Six Billion Dollar Man” was once scheduled for this year, but the film wasn’t close to being ready. The news comes on the heels of Argentinian director Damian Szifron exiting (fired from) the film as its director. Known for the excellent omnibus film “Wild Tales,” this was probably the smartest decision Szifron will ever make (spend more time at Cannes dude, build that promising rep).
Warner also moved its “Godzilla 2” film back two months to May 31, 2019 and dated “Doctor Sleep,” a Stephen King adaptation, to January 24, 2020.
Got all that? Good, there’ll be a quiz later!