The release of has been pushed back to March 15th amid ongoing writer and actor strikes, according to The hotly anticipated film was originally scheduled for November 3rd, but Warner Bros. and producer Legendary Entertainment agreed to delay it over four months — likely because the film wouldn’t meet its full box office potential without publicity from the star-studded cast.
The studio and production company held out on delaying the film as long as possible, according , but would have needed to start advertising the film by early September. It reportedly hoped the extra time would allow the cast, which includes Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Austin Butler, Florence Pugh and Christopher Walken, to participate in a full marketing push.
Along with , and have been pushed back to April 12th, 2024 and December 13th, 2024, respectively. Those dates were shuffled largely to accommodate .
The ongoing labor actions by writers and actors in Hollywood are a result of long-simmering tensions over a number of issues, but particularly due to residual payments from Netflix and other streaming platforms. Warner Bros. Discovery was at the center of these in the recent past, as it elected to release some films either directly to its HBO Max (now MAX) streaming platform with zero or limited theatrical releases. However, CEO David Zaslav said last year that the company “will fully embrace theatrical” going forward.
performed well enough at the box office with a $402 million gross, but hype for the sequel is much higher. ” is more of a contemplative movie. is an action-packed, epic war movie. It is much more dense. We went to all new locations,” said director Denis Villeneuve.