It's time for another round of release date shuffleboard. 20th Century Fox just announced some new release dates and moved some others around. Take a look.
• Kingsman prequel -- now opening on Valentine's Day (February 14) 2020, moved from November 15, 2019• Ford vs. Ferrari -- November 15, 2019, moved from June 28, 2019• Free Guy -- July 3, 2020
The Kingsman prequel is meant to be set in the World War I era. According to Collider, the cast includes Harris Dickinson, Matthew Goode, Ralph Fiennes, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Gemma Arterton, Tom Hollander, Rhys Ifans, Daniel Brühl, Charles Dance, Djimon Hounsou, Alison Steadman, Stanley Tucci, and Robert Aramayo.
The prequel film -- reportedly called Kingsman: The Great Game -- was said to be looking to cast great actors over big names, and they seemed to manage to get both. This is the third Kingsman film after Kingsman: The Secret Service and Kingsman: The Golden Circle, but it's not Kingsman 3. That movie is still said to be coming later as a sequel to the first two films.
This newly rescheduled 2020 Kingsman film is a prequel, and it won't star Taron Egerton's Eggsy -- so sorry about using him in the photo above, but there are no Kingsman prequel photos yet, so here we are. This prequel is taking the romantic Valentine's Day release date that Bond 25 just vacated -- presumably to avoid competition from Disney and the DCEU. Maybe the Kingsman prequel isn't worried about that, or maybe Fox just wanted to make room during 2019 awards season for the Ford vs. Ferrari movie.
As for Ford vs. Ferrari, James Mangold's film starring Christian Bale and Matt Damon now has an awards-friendly November 2019 release date. That film aims to tell the true story of the Ford Motor Company's attempt to defeat the dominant Ferrari at the 1966 24 Hours of Le Mans race in France. Ford v. Ferrari also has a fantastic supporting cast, including Caitriona Balfe an Jon Bernthal. With Bale and Damon as the leads, it's pretty much assured at least one Oscar nomination.
And then there's Free Guy, the video game action comedy from Stranger Things producer Shawn Levy. Ryan Reynolds is meant to star as a guy who suddenly realizes he's a background character in a video game. He must join forces with an avatar to prevent his world from being shut down by the makers of the game. This video game role will closely follow his voice role as the titular Pokémon: Detective Pikachu, which opens this May.
As The Hollywood Reporter noted, these Fox release date changes are coming on the verge of Disney's purchase of 21st Century Fox ... so will Disney be taking over the distribution and marketing of the movies? Time will tell.
In the meantime, try your best to keep up with the nonstop world of movie release date changes by bookmarking our handy 2019 movie release guide.
