Joining Universal and 20th Century Fox in their recent games of release date musical chairs, Disney have now announced some shifting weekends of their own. Jon Favreau's Jungle Book has been pushed back to 2016, while Craig Gillespie's Chris Pine-starring The Finest Hours will arrive sooner than we thought. The new Pete's Dragon has nabbed its opening day too. And with the sudden flurry of activity around DreamWorks' Ghost In The Shell remake, there's now also confirmation of exactly when we can expect to see Scarlett Johansson don her cyber-suit.
Favreau's live-action-and-CGI take on Rudyard Kipling and Mowgli will now grace cinema screens on April 15, 2016, six months later than originally planned. There's been no official reason given for this, but it's clearly a project where a long post-production was always going to be a necessity. It seems likely that it's a move to get those animal FX looking as seamless as possible. Its new date will see it open opposite the **Goosebumps **movie and Malcolm D. Lee's The Best Man Wedding: the sequel to his 2013 The Best Man Holiday.
The gap The Jungle Book leaves in Disney's schedule has been filled by The Finest Hours. Gillespie's coastguard drama will now be with us on October 9 this year, pitted against Halle Berry thriller Kidnap and Warners' remake of **National Lampoon's Vacation.
Pete's Dragon, directed by David Lowery, will fly in on August 12, 2016, hoping to fend off strong competition from Robert De Niro's **Dirty Grandpa, Seth Rogen's Sausage Party and Nic Mathieu's Spectral. As the only family film in a weekend of 'adult' comedies and a sci-fi thriller, that may prove to be a smart decision.
And Rupert Sanders' Johansson-starring Ghost In The Shell is now officially pencilled in for April 14, 2017. For more on that, cast your eyes over Empire**'s handy crash course.