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Universal Shifts 'Warcraft,' 'Pacific Rim 2' & 'Mummy' Reboot Dates

by Ethan Anderton
April 24, 2015
Source: THR

Yesterday, Universal announced that the next installment of the Fast & Furious franchise would arrive with Furious 8 hitting theaters on April 14th, 2017, but that's not the only release date news that the studio had in store. They've also announced dates for some forthcoming films like the sequels to Fifty Shades of Grey, and also shifted some films arriving over the next few years, such as the video game adaptation Warcraft from Duncan Jones, the sci-fi sequel Pacific Rim 2 from Guillermo del Toro and the first official movie that kicks off Universal's classic movie monsters franchise reboot, The Mummy. Read on!

First up, THR reports next spring's release of Warcraft has been moved back to June 10th, 2016. The Mummy has been pushed back from a summer release next year to the following spring on March 24th, 2017. In addition, the unknown next film in the monsters franchise has been pushed back to March 30th, 2018. Also on the monster front, Pacific Rim 2 has moved from the spring of 2017 to August 4th, 2017 instead. That explains why we haven't heard much in the vein of solid development on those films in awhile, and also why the studio didn't show any footage from Warcraft at CinemaCon this week.

Also arriving in 2017 will be the Doug Liman directed, Tom Cruise starring vehicle Mena, getting a perplexing January 6th, 2017 release, but apparently the fantastic box office performance of the Oscar-nominated American Sniper has studios thinking it's a very viable release month now. Honestly, I think that was a special circumstance and a fluke due to a perfect storm of patriotism, a lack of options and a very well-done marketing campaign, but we'll find out eventually. Finally, Universal has slated the Fifty Shades of Grey sequels, Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed will arrive on February 10th, 2017 and February 9th, 2018. It sounds like Universal has a lot in the works, so stay tuned for updates.

Find more posts in: Movie News, Release Dates

23 Comments

I was unaware that PacRim 2 got the green light!!! Where have I been!?!

Brian Sleider on Apr 24, 2015

Evidently they are going to do an animated series as well. They are really building up the brand.

Chris Groves on Apr 24, 2015

Pacific Rim 2? oh goodness. They had a decent premise but did a horrible casting job and the stale story telling did not help.

kyle stone on Apr 24, 2015

Interesting that Warcraft got the bump out of the March graveyard to summer prime-time. I was extremely skeptical that a video game, with a reputation for dorky childishness as bad as Warcraft's, could be translated into a decent action movie, but maybe just maybe someone's actually managed to make a halfway decent video game movie.

Wafffles on Apr 24, 2015

Duncan Jones can do it

Jon Odishaw on Apr 24, 2015

Just because you have no idea about the source material doers not mean it cant be good.

Brian Sleider on Apr 24, 2015

Huh? Who said that? I've been a fan of Blizzard for awhile. There's still no denying that it has something of an image problem - remember that South Park episode? Really, I'm making the opposite point: for studio execs to consider it strong enough to compete as a summer blockbuster instead of just a 'video game movie', maybe (hopefully) it's even better than we could have hoped.

Wafffles on Apr 24, 2015

Point taken. Its important to note this has nothing to do with World of Warcraft(like the SP episode) though. It takes places 100s of years prior.

Brian Sleider on Apr 24, 2015

Warcraft pushed from March to June, Kung Fu Panda 3 bumped up from March to January. No studios want their films squashed by Batman v Superman, which opens at the end of March. We saw the same thing with Star Wars opening this December, all of the biggest films moved away from it.

Chris Groves on Apr 24, 2015

If there's one thing I hate about movie industry, it's when the release dates gets changed, no matter how much sense it makes behind the scene.

Tuomas Lassila on Apr 24, 2015

So stoked for PR2.

OfficialJab on Apr 24, 2015

Same here.

Chris Groves on Apr 24, 2015

I can't wait for Warcraft. I'm not even a fan of the games or anything, I just think it sounds like a great fantasy/epic type of film. They finished filming in May of 2014, and were already set for a 1.5 year post-production period when it was set to come out in December 2015. But then it was pushed to March, then to June. So it is going to end up having over 2 years of post-production. LOADS of time to refine the edit of the film, perfect and tweak the effects, etc etc...we might be in store for something pretty special with that one.

Chris Groves on Apr 24, 2015

It's about as long as MAD MAX FURY ROAD!!~ I have high hopes for both films. From what I have heard WARCRAFT is going to be brutally awesome. Like FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS/LETTER FROM IWO JIMA, thing.

DAVIDPD on Apr 24, 2015

Weren't the Mad Max delays more of an issue of the production getting shuffled a bit? But yeah, I watched a Blizzard panel/convention thing about the film, and the director talked about how it was a 50/50 split in focus between the alliance and the horde, and that it wasn't 'good vs evil' but just a matter of two sides that conflicted. The only large scale movie where I can really think of that being done was perhaps Troy. There were characters on both the Greek and Trojan sides that you liked, and characters on both sides that you didn't like. If we can get something like THAT, but in the epic fantasy genre, then Warcraft will be a pretty special film.

Chris Groves on Apr 24, 2015

Not again Pacific rim??? Heartless and with a casting problem... If the movie is good it doesn't matter if it released in januari ..

ari smulders on Apr 24, 2015

I didn't have any problem with the casting. Elba is a good stern leader, the two young guys were fine as hardheaded characters in conflict, the girl was fine and not some interchangable bimbo, the scientists worked great with one another also. I don't know how much they really intended to lean on 'heart' as something to make the movie strong, but two scenes that stand out a lot are Mako as a child in the ruined city and the Australian father saying goodbye to his son who was going on a suicide mission. That's plenty for a movie about skyscraper robots fighting neon lizards, tks.

OfficialJab on Apr 24, 2015

Maybe it was bad timing from me, but it did me nothing. It wasn't bad but also not good. I didn't connect with the characters and that's strange for a del Toro movie... I can see allot of big budget action movies, and maybe one to many but maybe to poppy for my taste!

ari smulders on Apr 24, 2015

Better than Fordzilla: Sleep Attack.

Brian Sleider on Apr 24, 2015

Yes the masokist reboot. Pasific Rimjob 2 And 69 shades of gay Call me daisy and sspank my monkey. Im in 😀

redskulllives on Apr 24, 2015

I wonder if they still intend to follow up and have Dracula Untold still be the 'unofficial start' of the shared monsters universe. The movie wasn't great, but the only 'connection' that would seem to come out of that movie and into these movies would be having Evans and Dance reprise their roles from that film in future films...and I'm very up for that.

Chris Groves on Apr 24, 2015

Good for Universal for giving PACRIM 2 a chance! They got a helluva slate here.

DAVIDPD on Apr 24, 2015

Warcraft pushed back?!! No way!! Never saw that coming!! /s I'll literally not believe that movie's coming out until I see it on the marquee.

avconsumer2 on Apr 27, 2015

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