Walt Disney Studios is shaking up its plans for two major animated releases, “The Good Dinosaur” and its sequel to “Finding Nemo.”
The studio said Wednesday that its pre-historic adventure “The Good Dinosaur” will be pushed back by more than a year. The film will debut on Nov. 25, 2015 instead of May 30, 2014. The news of the delay comes less than a month after Disney’s Pixar Animation pulled the original director Bob Peterson off the project.
Entitled “Finding Dory,” the “Finding Nemo” follow-up will also drift into theaters later than expected. The film will be released on June 17, 2016, as opposed to November 25, 2015 so it can make room for “The Good Dinosaur.”
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The shake-up leaves Pixar without a major theatrical release in 2014. The animation company had intended to increase its annual output from one film to two, but those plans will be pushed off. It’s the first time a year has gone by between releases for the storied animation brand since 2005.
The gap means a new Pixar movie will not be released until “Inside Out” hits theaters on June 19, 2015. That film is set inside the human mind.
So far, “Finding Dory” and “The Good Dinosaur” both have their release dates entirely to themselves. Both movies will be released in 3D.
There were other tweaks to Disney’s schedule, as well. “Maleficent,” a re-telling of the “Sleeping Beauty” story with Angelina Jolie will be bumped up to May 30, 2014, where it will face off against the Seth MacFarlane faux-western “A Million Ways to Die in the West.” It was originally slated to debut on July 2, 2014, where its main competitors would have been the Melissa McCarthy comedy “Tammy” and the second week of “Transformers: Age of Extinction.”
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The studio is also nailing down dates for a pair of live-action dramas — “The Fifth Estate,” a DreamWorks film about WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange it is distributing, and “McFarland,” a cross country racing film with Kevin Costner.
“The Fifth Estate,” which saw its Oscar chances dented by mediocre reviews at the Toronto Film Festival, will now be released wide on October 18, 2013. It was originally slated to have a limited roll-out in a few major cities beginning on October 11, 2013.
“McFarland” will be released on Nov. 21, 2014, where it faces stiff competition in the form of
“The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1.”