After his disappointing Battleship, Universal Pictures is giving director Peter Berg a second chance with a more stripped-down affair. His Lone Survivor seems to be a straight-up, grounded action thriller and now the studio has given it a release date of January 10th, 2014. While it’s not the most promising of dates, Joe Carnahan‘s The Grey did well in arena last year, so perhaps they are hoping for the same.
Starring Mark Wahlberg, Taylor Kitsch, Ben Foster, Emile Hirsch and Eric Bana, the film based on the NY Times bestseller tells the story of four Navy SEALs on an ill-fated covert mission to neutralize a high-level Taliban operative who are ambushed by enemy forces in the Hindu Kush region of Afghanistan.
In another release date update for the studio, they are hoping to repeat the magic of Seth McFarlane’s $500 million-plus grosser Ted and have set his follow-up, the western comedy A Million Ways to Die in the West for a May 30th, 2014 release. Going up against Pixar’s The Good Dinosaur, the film features our director/writer as sheep farmer who backs out of a gunfight and his fickle girlfriend leaves him for another man.
When a mysterious and beautiful woman rides into town, she helps him find his courage and they begin to fall in love. But when her husband, a notorious outlaw, arrives seeking revenge, the farmer must put his newfound courage to the test. Also starring Charlize Theron, Amanda Seyfried, Sarah Silverman, Liam Neeson and Giovanni Ribisi, Neil Patrick Harris has just been added to the cast in an unknown role.
Are you looking forward to both upcoming Universal films?