Paramount’s CGI/live-action hybrid originally was scheduled to open in early June, sandwiched between “The Good Dinosaur” and “How to Train Your Dragon 2.”
Steering clear of other family films, Paramount and Nickelodeon Films’ Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles will now hit theaters on Aug. 8, 2014, two months later than originally planned.
Paramount has good reason for moving the CGI/live-action hybrid, which Michael Bay’s Platinum Dunes is producing. This summer, the box office saw a glut of family movies, resulting in diminished returns for a number of films.
Had it stuck to its original June 6, 2014 release date, Ninja Turtles would have opened only a week after Disney and Pixar’s The Good Dinosaur (May 30) and two weeks before Fox and DreamWorks Animation’s How to Train Your Dragon 2 (June 20). While Ninja Turtles has far more action than traditional animated movies and could even receive a PG-13 rating, it’s still making an aggressive family play.
Ninja Turtles also gets out of the way of Paramount and Michael Bay’s Transformers 4, which opens on June 27 (the previous Transformers films all have opened on a Wednesday, so it’s likely that Paramount will move up the release of the fourth installment by two days to June 25).
With Ninja Turtles, directed by Jonathan Liebesman, Paramount continues its bid to plant its own flag in the family arena now that it is no longer distributing titles from DreamWorks Animation.
