14 DAY TRIAL // Now this is an unprecedented situation: Warner Bros. and Marvel have scheduled two of their tentpole movies, “Man of Steel 2” and “Captain America 3,” for release on the very same day, May 6, 2015. And neither is willing to back down.
Some time ago, Warners announced that their second Superman installment, “Batman vs. Superman,” would be coming out on this date, which they chose after initially going for 2015. Yesterday, Marvel said that they were also coming out with “Captain 3” on May 6.
This is where it gets interesting. While industry insiders believe that neither movie studio, which are direct rivals, is “crazy enough” to stick to this scheduling, Warners President of Domestic Distribution Dan Fellman insists that they, for one, are. Because they’re not changing the date.
“It doesn’t make a lot of sense for two huge superhero films to open on the same date but there is a lot of time between now and 5/6/16. However at this time, we are not considering a change of date for ‘Batman vs. Superman’,” he says, as cited by Comic Book Movie.
Granted, he leaves the door open to the possibility that the day will come when they might think differently but, “at this time,” it’s not happening.
Not only it doesn’t “make a lot of sense” to have 2 superheroes movies coming out on the same day but it’s also very counterproductive. A golden rule in Hollywood with movie studios and release schedules says that, once a studio calls a date, it is not to be touched. In fact, no studio wants to touch it, because that would mean it has 50/50 chances of people not seeing their movie.
By this reasoning, Marvel shouldn’t have chosen May 6 as the release date but, since it did, it can mean one of two things: either it’s very confident in “Captain” and knows people would rather see it than “Batman vs. Superman,” or it simply doesn’t care, even though there’s a lot of money at stake. You will agree with us on that it can’t be the latter, right?
That can only mean that Marvel is certain of the film’s success. Considering the negative media attention, and especially the harsh criticism coming from fans, “Man of Steel” and its sequel have gotten so far, it’s not like you can blame Marvel for being too cocky.