It’s been quite a blockbuster summer so far at the movies, with ginormous hits like The Avengers, and big flops like Battleship.
As for the next two summers, the major studios are apparently shuffling things around, and Fox is also announcing that one of the biggest blockbusters in history, Independence Day, is going to be converted to 3D.
As Deadline tells us, ID4 in 3D is slated to hit theaters on July 3, 2012, and it will be interesting to see if audiences will be there to check it out again. As I’ve written previously here on TG, I’ve always had a place in my heart for ID4, and thought it was a great movie for what it is, a big, dumb blockbuster that you can turn your brain off and have fun with.
Obviously Fox is hoping people will have even more fun with ID4 in 3D, although again, it remains to be seen how much today’s audiences will go for it, as the summer of 1996 was quite some time ago.
Fox has also staked its blockbuster claim for the summer of 2014 with Steven Spielberg’s Robocalypse, which will be released worldwide on April 25, 2014, and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, the follow up to Rise of the Planet of the Apes, which will be released on Memorial Day, May 23, 2014. The next X-Men is also scheduled to hit theaters on July 18, 2014 as well.
Interestingly enough, The Lone Ranger has been moved up from its May 31 2013 release date to July 3, 2013. As we’ve reported here on TG, the Lone Ranger has had quite a tough road to the silver screen, with Disney first pulling the plug on the film because it was too costly, but everything was finally all straightened out when Johnny Depp, director Gore Verbinski (Pirates of the Caribbean), and producer Jerry Bruckheimer (Pirates, Top Gun, CSI), all agreeing to take less money up front for bigger back end deals.
When the Lone Ranger was going to shoot last year, it would have meant a November release this year, but since it got shut down because of its budget, we have to wait just a little bit longer to see if the new incarnation of that masked man will deliver. And if Disney’s willing to put it up against ID4 in 3D, it could be a very good sign indeed.
