Competing with the big boys of summer
Easily some of the biggest buzz to come out of this year’s South by Southwest Film Festival was the excitement for Joe Cornish’s directorial debut Attack the Block, a London-based action-thriller that has a group of kids from the projects taking on an alien invasion.
It looks like Sony’s Screen Gems have finally settled on a date to release the movie produced by Edgar Wright and co-starring Nick Frost of Shaun of the Dead after picking up the distribution rights a few months back, and they’re going with July 29.
They certainly must have a lot of confidence in the movie following its nationwide sneak previews last month, because that date places it square up against DreamWorks’ Cowboys & Aliens, directed by Jon Favreau and starring Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford, as well as Sony’s The Smurfs.
Then again, it also means Attack the Block will be released the Friday after Comic-Con where it’s sure to have a presence (and very likely to be screened again) in order to build on the anticipation for its North American release. We’ve been told that the movie will be getting a limited platform release on July 29, starting slow in the cities where it will have the most immediate interest and then build on the buzz for future expansion.
Source: Screen Gems, Edward Douglas
