Focus Features has pushed “Sinister 2” back one week from Aug. 21 to Aug. 28, which will likely benefit 20th Century Fox’s video game movie “Hitman: Agent 47” at the box office.
“Sinister 2” had been slated to open against “Agent 47” and the Jesse Eisenberg-Kristen Stewart action comedy “American Ultra.” With “Sinister” shifting one week, it helps pave the way for “Agent 47” to make a killing at the domestic box office. Each franchise appeals to the genre crowd and specifically young males, so both titles will likely get a boost from the move.
Shannyn Sossamon stars in “Sinister 2,” which will now open against Zac Efron’s DJ drama “We Are Your Friends” and the Weinstein Company’s action-thriller “No Escape” starring Owen Wilson and Pierce Brosnan.
“Hitman: Agent 47” stars Rupert Friend (“Homeland”) as an elite assassin who was genetically engineered from conception to be the perfect killing machine, and is known only by the last two digits on the barcode tattooed on the back of his neck. The culmination of decades of research, he’s endowed with unprecedented strength, speed, stamina and intelligence. His latest target is a mega-corporation that plans to unlock the secret of Agent 47’s past to create an army of killers whose powers surpass even his own. Teaming up with a young woman who may hold the secret to overcoming their powerful and clandestine enemies, 47 confronts stunning revelations about his own origins and squares off in an epic battle with his deadliest foe.
The original “Hitman” grossed nearly $100 million worldwide, while the first “Sinister” movie grossed $77 million worldwide.