There’s a lot of moving pieces right now in the landscape of the theatrical calendar. The latest appears to be Dune — and The Batman may be next.
Collider is exclusively reporting that Warner Bros. is bumping Dune from December 18 of this year to (yikes!) October 1, 2021.
There’s one big reason why that new date makes absolutely no sense: The Batman, also distributed by Warner Bros., is currently slated to open on October 1, 2021. There is absolutely no way that the same studio would release two huge franchise tentpoles on the same exact day.
However, Nicole Sperling, a New York Times media reporter, tweeted the same news citing two unnamed studio sources, although her tweet wouldn’t absolutely confirm that the Dune move is final.
Most studios wouldn’t dare go directly head-to-head with another studio on the same day when their films are that big. Given that, it’s even harder to imagine that a studio would compete against itself with films of that scale.
Still, the published report from Collider coupled with a rumor-tweet from a New York Times reporter doesn’t just drop out of nowhere without some level of credibility.
So, assuming the Dune reports are true (UPDATE: they apparently are, as Variety is now also reporting the move), that can only mean one thing: The Batman is about to move, too.
Why would it?
The answer may already be apparent: the film had to halt production recently when star Robert Pattinson was diagnosed with COVID-19. Although reports seemed to suggest that the delay wouldn’t affect the planned release schedule, the production fallout since then may have begun to necessitate otherwise.
For now, the news is that Dune is moving and no update has been given about The Batman. Still, if the Dune delay bears out to be true (the studio has yet to publicly confirm, despite multiple media requests), expect a new date for The Batman to soon follow — likely for Summer 2022.