Movie geeks anxious to meet Southland Tales and Donnie Darko director Richard Kelly at this summer’s Comic Con will have to hold their horses. Collider.com is reporting that Kelly’s next movie, The Box, has been pushed back to a September 2009 release date, instead of February 2009 as planned. That means that a big promotional push at July’s Comic Con would be a waste, and anything Warner Bros. has up their sleeve will probably happen at next summer’s Con.
More importantly, of course, this means that those awaiting Kelly’s next film will have to wait even longer to wash the taste of Southland Tales out of their mouths. The new date for the film is supposedly September 11, 2009. Now don’t get all worked up—that’s a Friday, and hey, some movie has to come out that day. But it’s not necessarily a good sign for a director who really needs to get back in Hollywood’s good graces. The Box, starring Cameron Diaz and James Marsden, has been finished for a while now, and its plot about a mystical box that causes murders seems like a good fit for the January-February time frame, which has been kind to thrillers like Cloverfield and The Messengers. If Warner Bros. thought they had something worthy on their hands, it seems like they would have stuck with the original plan.
Collider also reported that test screenings of the movie are being planned in the Los Angeles area, and they predict that word will leak out soon enough on whether or not the movie is a stinker. If the buzz isn’t great, though, this could be the beginning of a negative campaign that could sink The Box as effectively as Southland Tales was torpedoed last fall. Richard Kelly sure needs a break, and this doesn’t look like it’s going to be it.
