Before the COVID-19 pandemic, a release date change could have meant a lot of things. If you saw a movie moved back by several months, it could have been a sign the film didn't have the confidence of the studio. It could have meant the movie simply didn't feel right in that time of the year or there were too many movies that weekend and the studio didn't want to lose profit among a divided audience who might play eeny meeny miny moe on the list of showtimes presented to them in the local paper. This year, release date changes have mostly had to do with quarantine causing theater shutdowns and, as theaters open back up, studios finding themselves in months-long rush hours of new releases. Essentially, as theaters do open back up, movies trying to get there first to get the audience's attention will lead the pipeline of output to feel like a weekday trip on the 405 freeway. And audiences themselves might feel overwhelmed.
So, despite the anticipation for Bill & Ted Face the Music, it's probably a good thing that today the film opted to move it's release date up to August 28th (Where it will simultaneously be released both in select theaters and on premium VOD) This is ahead of it's original release on Labor Day weekend in the United States, the first weekend of September. The reason simply being that, because of all the pushback of releases, that holiday weekend will see a galore of releases both on the big screen and on streaming services. Even a little beyond that!
At the time of the writing of this article, Labor Day weekend will see the release of Christopher Nolan's Tenet along with streaming services releases for Disney’s live-action remake of Mulan and Charlie Kaufman’s I’m Thinking of Ending Things. In addition, the first three episodes of the second season of Amazon’s The Boys will be premiering and several major game titles like Marvel’s Avengers, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2, and NBA2K21. So perhaps, this is for the best.
Bill & Ted Face the Music stars Keanu Reeves, Alex Winter, William Sadler, Kristen Schaal, Samara Weaving, Brigette Lundy-Paine, Anthony Carrigan, Erinn Hayes, Jayma Mays, Holland Taylor, Kid Cudi, and Jillian Bell. It is directed by Dean Parisot.
It's all crashing down.
RIGHTEOUS
Um yay!!