The film based on the long-running Insomniac video game series Ratchet & Clank is going to be released domestically by Focus Features, the distributor of LAIKA's films. When?
April 29, 2016... This date will coincide with the release of the next Ratchet & Clank game, a reboot that reimagines the first game in the series.
First of all... A full year away? The film is all but complete and is screening at Cannes tomorrow. There's plenty of spaces this year that they can release it in. I guess it must be a right things, perhaps they can't release it right away due some kind of issue. Or maybe the film isn't finished yet and the Cannes screening was just a "show it to potential investors" kind of thing.
Also, why is Sony not distributing?
Lastly... April 29, 2016 is one week before Marvel and Disney launch The Avengers 2.5, I mean Captain America: Civil War! Wouldn't you want to give this film a little more breathing room before the juggernaut comes crashing in?
It's arguably targeting the same audience too, so why not give it some time to breathe? You know everyone's going to flock to see Captain America fight Iron Man while most of the other Avengers are present. Video game movies don't have a good track record at the domestic box office, mostly because of lot of the films looked bad and were bad. However, I see box office potential in a Ratchet & Clank film and if it does well - i.e. more than double its probably good-sized budget - then we could possibly see more animated films based on video games...
Yeah, I don't like this release date. Big shock. Maybe it's tentative, I don't know, I hope it is.
However, I am super-happy that it has a distributor and will be getting a theatrical release. It's been a long time since we've really heard anything about this film other than Cannes announcement, and Sony I think should've announced a date change some time ago because we kept hearing "2015" or "Q1 2015". I also wonder what's going on with the Sly Cooper movie they announced a while ago...
Anyways, at last, Ratchet & Clank will get a domestic theatrical release!