December means a crowded theatrical release line-up with studios vying for family outing dollars and the attention of award season voters. But Christmas Day just got a little less packed as Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit has been bumped to a release date in the new year. It will now open on January 17th, 2014. The news came via Exhibitor Relations in the Tweet below.
Receiving even less fanfare is the announcement from Box Office Mojo that the RoboCop has been bumped from Friday, February 7th to Wednesday, February 12th, 2014.
Paramount's choice to move Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit will free the espionage thriller from having to compete on its opening weekend with such anticipated box office heavy weights as the Justin Beiber concert doc Believe, Ben Stiller's fantastical adventure The Secret Life of Walter Mitty and Martin Scorsese's hotly anticipated biopic The Wolf of Wall Street. Also opening that day are the Keanu Reeves-fronted martial arts adventure 47 Ronin, the Sylvester Stallone/Robert De Niro double-hander Grudge Match, and in limited release the star-stuffed August: Osage County, the Charles Dickens-centric docudrama The Invisible Woman, and Jason Reitman's crime drama Labor Day, which is also a Paramount picture.
Instead, Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit will open against far less threatening fare, including the Ice Cube/Kevin Hart action-comedy Ride Along. While this likely means better box office for the pic in the long-run, the move also suggests a lack of faith in the audience drawing power of Shadow Recruit's star Chris Pine. But between Star Trek 3, Into the Woods, and Horrible Bosses 2, Pine should have plenty more opportunities to prove his appeal.
As for Sony's RoboCop, the future-set crime drama about a police officer who is part man part machine was set to go up against The LEGO movie opening weekend. However, it seems that when George Clooney's The Monuments Men leapt from December 18th to February 7th, Sony decided RoboCop could do with some space. For now it has no competition on the Wednesday before Valentines Day, and could serve as solid counterprogramming for those not interested in a romance on that weekend.
