Aquaman 3 Warner Bros

Source: Warner Bros

‘Aquaman’

Warner Bros has shuffled its release schedule, switching Aquaman & The Lost Kingdom to December 20 and The Color Purple to December 25 this year.

Jason Momoa stars in DC’s Aquaman sequel and he is also the lead in video game adaptation Minecraft, which gets a 2025 release. Barry Levinson’s gangster biopic The Wise Guys with Robert De Niro will open in 2024.

James Wan’s DC Aquaman & The Lost Kingdom had been dated for December 25 and also stars Patrick Wilson, Amber Heard and Nicole Kingdom. Wan produces alongside DC Studios co-head Peter Safran and Rob Cowan.

The 2018 original grossed $1.15bn and the upcoming tentpole is one of many that studio and exhibition executives will be looking to deliver robust business as Hollywood chases the pre-pandemic box office glory days.

Blitz Bazawule directs The Color Purple, a remake of Steven Spielberg’s 1985 original. Spielberg serves as producer with Oprah Winfrey (who acted in the original), Scott Sanders and Quincy Jones.

Fantasia Taylor, Taraji P. Henson, Danielle Brooks, Colman Domingo, Corey Hawkins, Halle Bailey, and H.E.R. are among the cast on the musical adaptation of Alice Walker’s novel about an African American woman’s struggles living in the Deep South in the early 1900s. The film was originally set to open on December 20.

The Wise Guys will open on February 2, 2024. Starring alongside De Niro in the crime drama are Debra Messing and Kathrine Narducci. Irwin Winkler produces.

Minecraft will open on April 4 2025. Jared Hess directs the action adventure which Roy Lee, Jill Sobel Messick, Mary Parent, Lydia Winters, and Vu Bui are producing.

The studio has set Untitled WB Event Film for December 19, 2025. Animated musical Toto, which had been set for February 2, 2024, has been moved off the schedule, as has Untitled DC Film, originally scheduled for September this year.