Earlier this year, 20th Century Fox decided to move their prequel Rise of the Apes back to Thanksgiving weekend for a number of undisclosed reasons, but they’ve now changed their mind and the Rupert (The Escapist) Wyatt-directed movie starring James Franco, Freida Pinto and Andy Serkis will now get a summer release after all on August 5, 2011.
That will put the movie up against Sony’s The Smurfs (opening that Wednesday), the Universal body-changing comedy The Change-Up starring Ryan Reynolds and Jason Bateman, and the 3D sci-fi thriller The Darkest Hour from Summit.
With those movies in place, David Gordon Green’s comedy The Sitter will be moving to December 9, presumably to get away from the other comedy opening that weekend with the hopes of bringing in holiday business.
