Warner Bros. has moved the release of “Jungle Book: Origins” back one year, while Gal Gadot‘s “Wonder Woman” has been moved up three weeks.
“Jungle Book” was scheduled to be released on October 6, 2017 but will now hit theaters on October 19, 2018. “Wonder Woman” is moving up from June 23, 2017 to June 2, 2017.
“I’ve got to say that personally I’m absolutely thrilled that Warner Brothers have changed the delivery date of our movie,” said “Jungle Book” director Andy Serkis on Facebook. “The ambition for this project is huge. What we are attempting is an unprecedented level of psychological and emotional nuance in morphing the phenomenal performances of our cast into the facial expressions of our animals. We are breaking new ground with realistic non-humanoid animal faces, such as a panther or wolf, ensuring that they convincingly communicate with human language and emotion via performance capture, and are able to stand up to real scrutiny in richly complex dramatic scenes. So, every minute more that we have to evolve the technological pipeline will make all the difference … the evidence is there already and it’s off the chain exciting, so hang on in there … This is truly next generation storytelling, and it will be the real deal!”
The change in the “Jungle Book” release date probably stems from the fact that Disney releases its “Jungle Book” on April 15, so Warner Bros. is no doubt hoping to space out the two movies even more.
The studio has also set dates for two of its still untitled DC films: Oct. 5, 2018 and Nov. 1, 2019. An untitled Warner Bros. event film is slated for Oct. 6, 2017.
Gadot made her first appearance as Wonder Woman in “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice,” which debuted to $166 million on March 25 but suffered a massive drop-0ff of 69 percent in its second weekend. In its third round, it’s expected to drop another 50 percent, meaning the film will earn another $25 million.