It’s only been a couple of weeks since Lionsgate announced it would move Katherine Heigl‘s “One for the Money” out of a July 8th release date to an earlier date of June 3rd. Reasons for doing so included not wanting to release against Sony Pictures‘ “The Zookeeper” and Warner Bros.‘ “Horrible Bosses;” both are comedies that would directly compete with the Janet Evanovich novel-based murder mystery-comedy. In moving to an earlier date, producers only lined the film up against Fox‘s expected smash hit “X-Men: First Class.” Though at first they probably thought the two films were different enough to draw their respective audiences, it looks like the studio isn’t going to play chicken any longer.
EW reports that Lionsgate has pulled “One for the Money” out of the summer lineup until further notice. “We just want to find the right home for [the film],” a Lionsgate rep said, “and that [date] didn’t feel like it.” The studios might also be wary of a summer release date after Heigl’s last film, “Killers,” failed to bring in a big box-office return as expected (read: it bombed).
This isn’t the first time in recent history Lionsgate has pulled a film from a prominent date. Last spring, the studio yanked the Nic Cage wig fest freakout “Season of the Witch” from its March 7, 2010 date only to dump it a couple of months ago on January 7th. Whether or not Heigl’s film gets such a drastic change remains to be seen, but clearly, the studio isn’t rolling the dice on the actress being a summer draw.
So for now, “X-Men: First Class” remains the only major studio movie on June 3rd, with arthouses offering up Mike Mills‘ excellent “Beginners” and Richard Ayoade‘s “Submarine” as alternatives to the mutant heroes.
