Revealed at Las Vegas' CinemaCon are release date changes for upcoming films of the horror, sci-fi, and fantasy varieties, as Universal has pushed back the releases of Pacific Rim 2, The Mummy, and Warcraft. Sony and Screen Gems also recently made a change of their own by slightly bumping up the theatrical debut of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies:
Initially scheduled to come out on February 19th, 2016, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is now slated to hit theaters a few weeks earlier on February 5th, 2016.
In the film, “the heroine, Liz Bennett (James), is pressured by her family to marry into a wealthy upper-class home but chafes at the stiff social mores of Victorian England. Instead, she feels that she should help defend the countryside against the onslaught of a horrifying zombie plague.”
Lily James, Sam Riley, Bella Heathcote, and Matt Smith star in the horror comedy. James plays Elizabeth Bennett, Riley portrays Mr. Darcy, Heathcote shall play Elizabeth’s sister, and Smith takes on the role of Mr. Collins. Jack Huston, Douglas Booth, Charles Dance, and Lena Headey, meanwhile, round out the core cast. Among the producers is Natalie Portman, who was once in line to star before departing the project.
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is directed by Burr Steers (Igby Goes Down, 17 Again) from a screenplay he wrote with David O. Russell. Along with Craig Gillespie and Mike White, Russell was once attached to direct the adaptation of the 2009 Seth Grahame-Smith horror comedy novel of the same name, itself a parody of Jane Austen’s 1813 classic work of literature, Pride and Prejudice.
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Pacific Rim 2:
Originally slated for an April 7th, 2017 release, Guillermo del Toro's follow-up to 2013's Pacific Rim is now scheduled to hit theaters on August 4th, 2017.
Few official details on the film are known, but it was reported that Guillermo del Toro was working with screenwriter Zak Penn (X-Men 2, The Avengers) and Travis Beacham (Pacific Rim) on a new story that will follow Raleigh Becket and Mako Mori after the events of the first film.
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The Mummy reboot:
Once timed for a June 24th, 2016 release, the reboot of 1932's The Mummy is now penciled in for a March 24th, 2017 debut.
Alex Kurtzman is lined up to helm The Mummy reboot, the first film in Universal's intertwined monster cinematic universe. Kurtzman and his writing collaborator Roberto Orci have put their imprints on the script penned by Jon Spaihts (Prometheus).
It was previously revealed that the new Mummy film is expected to take place in the present and won’t be a hardcore horror film, but will instead be more along the lines of an action-adventure movie with horror sprinkled throughout, perhaps in a fashion similar to Stephen Sommers’ The Mummy (1999) and sequels. Both Len Wiseman (Total Recall remake, Underworld) and Andy Muschietti (Mama) had previously been attached to direct The Mummy reboot.
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Untitled Universal Monster Franchise Film:
A film that could focus on Dracula, the Wolf Man, Frankenstein's monster, or the Creature from the Black Lagoon (to name a few), this untitled Universal monster movie was previously lined up for an April 21st, 2017 release, but is now slated to come out on March 30th, 2018.
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Warcraft:
Warcraft was once scheduled for a March 11th, 2016 3D release, but the fantasy film is now slated to hit theaters in 3D on June 10th, 2016.
A Legendary movie from Universal Pictures, Warcraft is directed by Duncan Jones (Source Code) from a script by Charles Leavitt that Duncan rewrote.
The film stars Ben Foster, Travis Fimmel, Paula Patton, Toby Kebbell, Robert Kazinsky, Dominic Cooper, Ben Schnetzer, Daniel Wu, and Clancy Brown. While no official plot synopsis is available at this time, it was revealed at the San Diego Comic-Con thatWarcraft will focus on the beginning of the war between the Alliance and the Horde as they fight for Azeroth. Stay tuned to Daily Dead for further updates on all five of these films.
Raised on a steady diet of R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps books and Are You Afraid of the Dark?, Derek has been fascinated with fear since he first saw ForeverWare being used on an episode of Eerie, Indiana.
When he’s not writing about horror as the Senior News Reporter for Daily Dead, Derek can be found daydreaming about the Santa Carla Boardwalk from The Lost Boys or reading Stephen King and Brian Keene novels.
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