With filming kicking off in the fall of 2014, things have been pretty quiet around "Blue Valentine" and "The Place Beyond The Pines" director Derek Cianfrance‘s "The Light Between Oceans." The picture didn’t pop up as some expected on the festival circuit in 2015, but the official release date for the movie now paints a worrying picture for the movie.
Disney has officially slated the drama to hit theaters on September 2nd. Labor Day weekend is traditionally a dumping ground, and this year is not much different, with the Natalie Dormer horror flick "Patient Zero," and Relativity thriller "Solace," starring Colin Farrell and Anthony Hopkins, set to arrive (though things could change for this picture, which has already been released internationally, given the instability of the studio). Last year, the big wide-release movie for the holiday crowd was "The Transporter Refueled." In 2014, it was the horror "As Above, So Below." The year before that, it was the One Direction movie and the Ethan Hawke thriller "Getaway." You get the drift.
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Disney isn’t averse to summer releases for their dramas. "The Help" debuted on August 10, 2011, and went on earn four Oscar nominations and a win for Octavia Spencer. And though it flopped, "The Odd Life Of Timothy Green" opened on August 15, 2012. However, Labor Day, which is one of the quietest weekends on the box-office calendar, is not a great signal for a movie starring Michael Fassbender, Alicia Vikander, and Rachel Weisz. And while a Venice Film Festival debut is possible, given that it starts on August 31st, the date pretty much rules out ‘Oceans’ from any other fall festival.
Here’s hoping that maybe this is some kind of counter-programming move from Disney, but reading the tea leaves, the signs seem to indicate the studio isn’t so confident about this movie.
