Like two drunken frat boys engaged in a pissing match for bragging rights, Universal and Relativity have been fighting it out over their competing Snow White movies both set to hit next year. In one corner, we have “Snow White and the Huntsman” with Chris Hemsworth as the huntsman, Charlize Theron set to play the evil queen, Kristen Stewart as Snow White, and “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides” star Sam Clafin as the prince. In the other corner, we have Tarsem‘s untitled Snow White movie with Julia Roberts, Armie Hammer, Lily Collins, Nathan Lane and Robert Emms. Originally, Tarsem’s film was set to be released on June 29, 2012, with Universal’s picture coming arriving in December. But last week, Universal announced they were moving their film all the way up to June 1st and switching out their film with Judd Apatow’s forthcoming “Knocked Up” spin off, which they bumped to the end of the year. But it looks like Relativity now has the last laugh.
The studio has announced that their still untitled film, set to be directed by Tarsem, will arrive in less than ten months on March 16, 2012. The move is massive, pushing the film ahead by three months and now putting the production under tremendous time constraints (if you thought “X-Men: First Class” was rushed, you ain’t seen nothing yet). And to put a bit more salt in the wound, Relativity has also announced that they’ll be releasing “Safe Haven,” an adaptation of the Nicholas Sparks novel, right opposite “Snow White And The Huntsman” on June 1st. That’s gotta hurt.
We’re not quite sure what Universal will do now. They can’t really move their film ahead any further unless they want to crank it out in nine months and regardless, at least two of their stars are tied up with another film at the moment (Charlize Theron is shooting “Prometheus” and Chris Hemsworth is filming “The Avengers“). Looks like they lose this round and walk away with some serious egg on their faces. As for Relativity, March 16th is no easy weekend. They will be squaring off against “21 Jump Street” with Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum as well as the Mark Wahlberg thriller “Contraband.”
So it looks like the saga of which Snow White film will come first has been resolved. Shooting on the Tarsem film will gear up next month. And oh yeah, Phillip Noyce‘s Navy Seal/World War III thriller “Hunter Killer” has also been set for December 21, 2012 and it’s another spit in the eye to Universal who have Judd Apatow‘s next film — rumored to be titled “This Is Forty” — set for the same weekend.
@zoe, don\’t forget that universal\’s snow white is stuck right between men in black 3 and madagascar 3.
Which ever film comes out first wins. The world is not demanding any Snow White film to begin with. Three month separation is too soon for another movie.
I want Tarsem to direct the next Wolverine instead of this shit.
@Marcus
Lol. Aw haters are cute.
March 2012 has Hansel & Gretel, The Hunger Games, Clash of the Titans and now The Brother\’s Grimm in the middle. What fantasy films was Alice In Wonderland competing against?
Yeah, March was such a bad month for Alice in Wonderland., after all. What did that take home? A billion or so dollars? Universal is screwed, no matter how much the KStew fangirls want to pretend otherwise.
I highly doubt Universal didn\’t see this coming. Singh is known to take a long time editing I wonder how he\’s going to feel about having a studio breathing down his neck to work quickly?
March seems like a bad month Grimm won\’t win against those 2 movies and The Hunger Games opens the next week. It\’ll be forgotten so quickly.
I\’d like to see Universal push Relativity to work faster and faster and at the last minute pull out and move back to December. Giving themselves 10months instead of the original 6months and hopefully a very poorly rushed film to be compared to.
That would be the highest form of games.
relativity also has safe haven coming out on the same day as universals snow white. i see both snow whites suffering from the rushed dates. universal should just put their snow white back to december, and give the film makers enough time to make a decent movie.
Universal needs to stay put and let Relativity rush their project. The rush will show in quality, and frees Universal to make the best film with the best promotion.
I think both films are too far into development to back out. So what I see happening is Universal throwing in the towel and moving their film to the fall/winter and Relativity breathing a sigh of relief and moving theirs back to it\’s original June 29th date.
Both these projects should\’ve stayed put. A 6-month time frame between films would\’ve been enough for the public to forget and watch both films. Now, we\’re going to get 2 rushed and sloppy films.
We all know that the \”winning\” studio will move the release date back once the other studio chickened out and gave up their project. It\’ll only take a little while until the winning projects started filming and it\’s 100% clear the other one won\’t.
Shooting next month and released in March of next year. Yeah right. Quality will suffer. You forgot to mention The Hunger Games has a release date of March 23, 2012. Relativity is just posturing at this point.
LOL. This is getting ridiculous.
two stars busy at the moment-hemsworth is filming avengers.
also they have put hunter killers against that apatow film,another universal film…