Facing a crowded summer blockbuster season, Warner Bros has decided to move its live action Peter Pan film to autumn.
Pan, directed by Joe Wright and starring Hugh Jackman, Rooney Mara and Amanda Seyfried, is now set for October 9, instead of July 24.
The original timing would have put it in a packed month of potential blockbusters including Disney/Marvel’s Ant-Man and Paramount Pictures’ Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation.
The change should give the film and its filmmakers more “breathing room”, the Burbank studio said in a statement.
“We wanted to give Pan the space to extend its theatrical run, so taking it out of the cluttered summer season made the most sense,” said Warner Bros US distribution head Dan Fellman. “Moving the film to the heart of the autumn will allow us more time to screen the picture, enabling us to capitalise on what we anticipate will be strong word of mouth.”
The move will also give the filmmakers more time to complete the movie.
“As you might expect, the fantastical story of Peter Pan involves very complex effects and I did not want to compromise on quality in finishing the film,” Wright said in a statement.
Instead of the summer blockbuster fare, the film will now compete directly with Universal Pictures’ Steve Jobs, the biopic of the late Apple chief.
Earlier on Monday, Warner changed the dates for its Lego franchise movies — the studio’s yet-untitled Lego Batman picture, the ninja-centric spin-off movie Ninjago and The Lego Movie Sequel.
