Marvel has announced “Captain America 3” share a release date with “Batman vs. Superman,” but Warner Bros. Studios isn’t about to back down from the box office competition.
Dan Fellman, president of domestic distribution for Warner Bros., confirmed to Bloomberg the “Man of Steel” sequel will be released on its scheduled launch date, May 6, 2016.
“It doesn’t make a lot of sense for two huge superhero films to open on the same date but there is a lot of time between now and 5/6/16,” Fellman said. “However at this time, we are not considering a change of date for ‘Batman vs. Superman.’”
However, analysts are skeptical both films will be released on the same date.
“I don’t think the studios or the theaters would be happy to see this,” Alan Gould, an analyst at Evercore Partners LLC in New York, told Bloomberg. “I would be surprised if they didn’t end up changing these dates.”
“Captain America: The Winter Soldier” co-director Joe Russo told Digital Spy he also believes it is unlikely Marvel and Warner Bros. will both keep the May 2016 date.
"Everybody likes to imagine a flame war that'll start over this but it's not," he said. "It's two big movies on a date - neither studio is crazy enough to eat up each other's profits. At some point, somebody's going to move off the date."
Forbes film blogger Mark Hughes also believes the Warner Bros. and Disney wouldn’t risk losing profits by releasing two highly anticipated films on the same day.
"Well, the reality is that of course there isn't going to be any true May 6th confrontation between these films. And I don't believe anybody at either studio ever seriously thought there would be," Hughes wrote in a feature for Forbes. "More to the point, though, despite the fact that of course there's competitiveness and trash-talk, and despite the fact both studios want their own films to be the best and highest grossing, neither studio actually wants the other to fail or wants to sink one another's films or franchises."
"Fans think that way," he added. "The press thinks that way. But businesses with hundreds of millions of dollars invested in the assumption this genre will continue to be popular, and that audiences will continue feeling happy with superhero movies, do not feel that way."
