Over the weekend, it was revealed that we’re getting Ben Affleck’s “Live By Night” nine months earlier than planned — the star’s return to the director’s chair with his adaptation of Dennis Lehane’s period crime epic was originally set to open in October 2017, but things are coming together sooner than planned, even with Affleck currently shooting “Justice League,” and so the film will now open in January, with rumors of an awards-season qualifying run already flying.
But that’s not the only release date news from the studio, and not all of it is good. The big headline news is that the sequel to “The Lego Movie,” originally planned for May 2018, now won’t hit theaters until February 2019, nearly five years to the day after its predecessor hit theaters. That suggests potentially some creative issues pushing it back (not uncommon in the animation world), but fans of the plastic blocks should be reassured that spin-off “The Lego Batman Movie” will still be hitting theaters next year as planned.
Meanwhile, disaster movie “Geostorm,” the directorial debut of “Independence Day” producer Dean Devlin and starring Gerard Butler and Jim Sturgess, has been delayed once again. Shooting back in 2014, it was originally meant to come out in March of this year, but has shifted three times and will now open on October 20th, 2017. The film boasts the Gerard Butler-iest logline of all time (“As a man heads into space to prevent climate-controlling satellites from creating a storm of epic proportions, his brother discovers a plot to assassinate the president”). Owen Wilson/Ed Helms comedies “Bastards” has also been pushed back, from October of this year to January 27th next year.
Finally, you’re going to see “How To Train Your Dragon 3” a little earlier, with the film now set for May 18th, 2018. And if Jessica Chastain will be competing in awards season, this time around it won’t be for Niki Caro’s “The Zookeeper’s Wife” — the World War Two movie, also starring Daniel Bruhl, has been set for release by Focus Features for March 31st, 2017.