Marvel fans all got really excited when the decision was made to move Avengers: Infinity War up a week and release it on April 27. However, that move appears to be causing waves through the industry. Rampage, the new video game based film starring Dwayne Johnson, was originally going to be released on April 20, but now it is also jumping a week earlier and will hit theaters April 13.
Originally, Rampage was set to come out two weeks before Avengers: Infinity War, and with no major studio tentpoles set for release on that weekend in-between, Rampage was likely to have a solid opening weekend and potentially a strong second weekend as well, before the Avengers showed up and ate its lunch. The Hollywood Reporter says that Rampage has been doing well with test audiences, so the studio may be thinking that second weekend could be key to the film's success. Anybody who isn't so sure that a movie based on a 1980s quarter muncher can actually be that good might be convinced by word of mouth coming out of the first weekend. By jumping back a weekend, Rampage puts that second open weekend back between itself and Infinity War.
It will be interesting to see if Rampage's move continues a domino effect of release date shifts. Ready Player One had a full three weekends as the big movie in the theater previously, but now that has been cut to two. It could probably jump back a weekend itself, but that would eat into the time that Pacific Rim: Uprising had to itself. It can't really move, because that would put it in direct competition with Tomb Raider. Also, Tomb Raider comes out next week, so there's no real time for it to move.
On the other side of Avengers: Infinity War, one wonders if we could see Deadpool 2 move up. It already made a move from June to May 11, but a hop back to May 4 could give it some breathing space between it and Solo: A Star Wars Story, though one assumes part of the reason Infinity War moved in the first place to get some separation from Deadpool.
This is why the release calendar gets so full of movies so fast, these dates are valuable and studios want to stake claims early to be sure they get the release date they want. But it's clearly a delicate balance. When one movie shifts it throws everything off and the rest of the calendar needs to adjust. The moving of Infinity War will impact the total box office for much more than just that one movie. Time will tell by exactly how much.
