Fresh off a meeting with Disney distribution officials in London, DreamWorks CEO Stacey Snider announced Wednesday a flurry of release-date changes for the studios' upcoming slate, highlighted by the movement of Steven Spielberg's "War Horse" from August 2011 to Dec. 28, 2011.
Adapted from Michael Morpurgo's eponymous novel and set just ahead of World War I, the story follows a young man, Albert, and his horse, Joey, and how their bond is broken when Joey is sold to the cavalry and sent to the trenches.
Despite being too young to enlist, Albert heads to France to save his friend.
Enthused after showing Speilberg footage to managers in London, Snider called the film "an intimate story about how the horse affects all its handlers as it goes through World War I. It’s not 'Saving Private Ryan'; it’s intended for families, but the backdrop is World War I."
Moving the film to Dec. 28 places it just five days after Paramount's premiere of another Spielberg-directed project, 3D movie "The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn."
However, Snider said that "Warhorse" was demographically dissimilar in its target audience. And the chance to move it into the family-film season was too good to pass up, she added.
"The movie felt like a holiday film," Snider said. "We'd been thinking about (moving) it for a while and had been kicking that around."
Also among the moves, Shawn Levy's futuristic Hugh Jackman movie "Real Steel" has been moved up a month to Oct. 7. The Christopher Columbus-produced chick flick "The Help" has been slotted into August, as has tongue-in-cheek horror film "Fright Night 3D" starring Colin Ferrell.
Starring Emma Stone, Sissy Spacek and Allison Janney, "The Help" will premiere Aug. 12, with "Fright Night" debuting a week later.
With DreamWorks now set to put the pedal to the metal with new distribution partner Disney, Snider spoke alongside Disney worldwide theatrical distribution president Chuck Viane in a teleconference with box-office reporters Wednesday.
She had effusive praise for "Real Steel," saying director Levy had "knocked it out of the park" on the film about fighting robots.
"We showed this one to Disney managers, and they went through the roof," Snider said, noting the film had been pushed forward a month mainly to avoid a crowded November box office.
Asked about the company's strategy regarding 3D, Snider said she doesn't foresee the format's use becoming ubiquitous for every film.
"It's a picture-by-picture decision for us," she noted.
As for its Jon Favreau-directed "Cowboys and Aliens" — which will be distributed by Universal — Snider said, "We really wanted to convey the kind of epic beauty of the Western landscape. It borrows from John Ford and other masters, and creating that epic landscape, it's more important than creating an artificial 3D effect."
Not including the Universal-co-produced "Cowboys and Aliens," DreamWorks will kick off its partnership with Disney starting Feb. 18 with the Michael Bay-produced, D.J. Caruso-directed futuristic action thriller "I Am Number Four."
In all, including "Cowboys and Aliens," DreamWorks has six films on its 2011 slate.
