In case you were wondering, yeah, that terrible looking, found footage movie about the kids who discover time travel while watching old home movies of themselves was supposed to come out on February 28th.
I can’t think of another film to have been pulled so close its release. The trailer was ubiquitous throughout the month of January and to Paramount’s credit, I didn’t even notice what must have been an abrupt recall of the marketing material. Granted, this isn’t a major rescheduling in the way that G.I. Joe: Retaliation was, but it’s always interesting when something like this happens. Right now the plan is to change the title (to Project Almanac) and release it a year from now (January 30th, 2015).
But why bother? Were the expectations for this movie higher than any of us expected? Paramount yanked The Pouhgkeepsie Tapes after a disastrous screening at Harry Knowles’ 2007 Butt-Numb-A-Thon, and that’s another case of a minor investment being taken more seriously than it maybe should have been.* Surely pulling the movie and starting over with the marketing has to be more costly than the film itself? Again, why bother?
Maybe they won’t. Maybe the film will become lost in limbo like Oren Peli’s Area 51, one day popping up on YouTube to the tune of a few thousand curious views. Speaking of which…
*And this is 2 years before the release of Paranornal Activity, which established their current model of low risk, high yield filmmaking. Again, the question is, what kind of business did they expect from such a niche film?