Last month, Blumhouse shifted “The Exorcist: Believer” from its coveted Friday, October 13 release date to a week earlier due to “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour.” And now that Beyoncé has her concert film “Renaissance” ready for theaters on December 1, New Regency will also move one of its premiere awards season releases from that date.
THR reports that the indie distributor has lifted Jeff Nichols‘ “The Bikeriders” from its early December theatrical release for another undisclosed date. It makes sense on paper to do so, too, since Beyoncé is as big a pop icon as Taylor Swift, and “The Eras Tour” posted the second-best box office opening in October ever last weekend. If “Renaissance: A Film By Beyoncé” does as well as Swift’s, any other film opening that weekend will do poorly. And while Nichols’ film isn’t a horror sequel, but it’s a similar mid-budget film with a selective audience; so it needs a more open weekend for it to thrive.
But “The Bikeriders” also needs its cast to promote the film for it to do well theatrically. With talks failing again between SAG-AFTRA and the AMPTP, there’s no end in sight for the guild strike, and that means Austin Butler, Tom Hardy, Jodie Comer, and others won’t be able to give Nichols’ film a marketing boost. And star power is something an awards season contender needs when it’s first released, even if “The Bikeriders” did impressively on the Fall festival circuit (read The Playlist’s review here).
So, thanks to Beyoncé and the SAG-AFTRA strike, New Regency has pulled Nichols’ film from its release schedule but still plans to have it qualify for the 2024 awards season. In short, that means audiences should expect “The Bikeriders” in theaters sometime this winter. But it won’t be on December 1. Typically, the post-Thanksgiving box office is one of the weakest annually, but Beyoncé’s concert film may change that this year. Given the current lineup, a January 2024 theatrical release for Nichols’ film feels most likely.
Based on Danny Lyon‘s book of the same name, “The Bikeriders” charts the rise and fall of a fictional motorcycle club in the 1960s midwest. Along with Butler, Hardy, and Comer, the film also stars Nichols regular Michael Shannon, Boyd Holbrook, Mike Faist, Norman Reedus, and Damon Herriman. The film received high marks from critics at its world premiere at Telluride last month, making it an anticipated movie on the Fall/Winter 2023 release schedule.