We can all go ahead and thank James Cameron for ensuring the December box-office can be just as lucrative as the busy summer season. After he released the highest-grossing film (ever) during that timeframe, studios have been scheduling some of their biggest blockbusters there. This winter is the most jampacked yet.
In the span of a few weeks we have Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, The Adventures of Tintin, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, War Horse and We Bought a Zoo competing. That doesn’t even factor in big award plays like Carnage, The Iron Lady, Young Adult and Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close. Yeah, its going to busy and now a few studios are doing some last-minute fine-tuning. Check out the changes below.
Paramount Pictures have moved Steven Spielberg‘s The Adventures of Tintin up two days, and will now open on Wednesday, December 21st. They’ve also added an exclusive IMAX engagement to Brad Bird‘s Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, in order to distance from Spielberg’s blockbuster, which is also opening in that format.
The director did a great interview with Hero Complex highlighting his reasons for this five-day, IMAX-exclusive bunch and I encourage you to read it as well as the new behind-the-scenes photo above. Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol will now hit more than 200 IMAX theaters on December 16th, 2011 before going wide on December 21st.
In other Spielberg news, his WWI drama War Horse will now hit theaters on Christmas Day, instead of December 28th. The holiday usually gets high theater attendance, so it was a smart move on DreamWorks part.
We also got word that Ruben Fleischer‘s 1950s crime drama Gangster Squad will hit on the prime fall date of October 19th, 2012. Starring Ryan Gosling, Sean Penn, Josh Brolin and Emma Stone, it will go up against The Big Wedding and David Chase‘s untitled drama.
Which December release are you most looking forward to? Is this a good date for Gangster Squad?