With its final co-production with Legendary Pictures fading fast at the domestic box office, Warner Bros. has repositioned one of its most hotly-anticipated summer releases to pit it against a Legendary production they had famously little faith in, just weeks before its prospective release. Jupiter Ascending moves from the 18th of July to the 6th of February next year, to face Universal's Legendary release The Seventh Son, and Lionsgate's Mortdecai. This, as Sex Tape has been moved to Jupiter's initial opening date. It's little wonder Warner has chickened out of releasing Jupiter Ascending in a crowded slot that would have seen it sandwiched between Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and Hercules. The Wachowskis have struggled to connect with audiences since The Matrix in 1999, and what little promotional material there had been for their sci-fi epic didn't look very promising. More wonder around why they've waited so long to make this decision to delay the film, and while the official word is that it needs extensive effects work which wouldn't have been accomplishable in the coming weeks, there's widespread speculation that Warner might have been more comfortable with a less-competitive February opening. They point to their recent release, The LEGO Movie, as an example of a success story in that slot, but many might look to 300: Rise of an Empire, which was similarly postponed, to end up making fine money in a spring release, but no better than fine.
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