Universal Shuffles Release Dates Again, We Get Jurassic Park 3D Now 3 Months Early!

Universal has decided a major shuffle of its release schedule next year, this all looks to accommodate the Keanu Reeves’ 47 Ronin. The Carl Rinsch (Ridley Scott’s son-in-law) directed samurai action flick has had some trouble with reshoots that originally pushed its November 2012 release date back to February 2013, and now it’s scheduled for a Christmas 2013 release.

Seth Gordon’s (Horrible Bosses) new comedy starring Jason Bateman and Melissa McCarthy, Identity Thief, will move into the February 8 spot vacated by 47 Ronin, and Richard Curtis’ (Love Actually) sci-fi time travel comedy starring Rachel McAdams, About Time, will move from Christmas 2013 to May 10. Since there’s still no official synopsis of About Time I’m going to guess it’s not romantic, because if it were this switch up is a little silly. A romantic comedy with Rachel McAdams may play better in February, and a Horrible Bosses type comedy will probable fare better in summer. Especially considering McCarthy’s breakout Bridesmaids did gangbusters in its May release and likewise for McAdams The Vow on its February release. Of course I’ve seen neither of these films, but Universal has screwed up release dates before so who knows if there’s a good reason for their choices.

The Ryan Reynolds’ and Jeff Bridges’ action comedy R.I.P.D. is being nudged back three weeks to July 19 to make room for Kick-Ass 2 on June 28. Both good dates in my opinion. Mark Wahlberg’s second film with director Baltasar Kormakur after Contraband, 2 Guns, gets a release date of August 16. I’m not sure why, they must think it’s going to be good, but after Contraband did so well in the off season I’d expect this would do better as an early or late year release. Wahlberg just isn’t a huge summer draw, but maybe after Ted they want to keep the guy around.

The truly exciting new is the push up of Jurassic Park 3D from July to April 5, 2012. I can’t wait to see this in 3D, I’ve been a fan since it originally came out in theaters on June 9, 1993. I guess they were scared of other summer movies pushing this one out and decided an off season release would be better. Plus this is the weekend after Easter Sunday, and I’ve always thought Jurassic Park played well to the family crowd. I hope these 3D rereleases continue to do well as there are many more older films that today’s audiences haven’t seen on the big screen, and many more that I’d like to revisit.