Movies

'No Time To Die,' 'Bill And Ted Face The Music' Both Get New Earlier Release Dates

bill and ted 3 release date
By Hoai-Tran Bui

Following the massive reshuffling of Warner Bros.' major releases, MGM and United Artists Releasing are following suit with some release date changes of their own. United Artists Releasing jumped to move the long-awaited sequel Bill and Ted Face the Music to the August release date vacated by Warner Bros.' Wonder Woman 1984, while MGM's latest Bond flick No Time to Die has actually been pushed up a week in the U.S.

A few days ago, Warner Bros. reshuffled its release calendar, pushing the highly anticipated Tenet back by two weeks and moving Wonder Woman 1984 from August to a fall release. Other studios are quietly sliding into the vacated slots, with MGM using the chance to push the U.S. release of No Time to Die up by five days, from November 25 to an earlier November 20 date, while Bill and Ted Face the Music takes Wonder Woman 1984's old spot of August 14 — a week earlier than its initial August 21 release. Deadline reported the Bill and Ted 3 release date shift, while the official James Bond Twitter quietly announced the new U.S. release date (the U.K. release date remains the same).

It's rare to see release dates pushed up rather than delayed amid the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, which has delayed all major studio releases since theaters began shuttering in mid-March. No Time to Die was one of the first films to be pushed back following the outbreak, with MGM bumping the film from an April release to November 12, 2020 in the U.K. and November 25, 2020 for the rest of the moviegoing world. It seemed like a drastic delay back then, but incredibly prescient now, with the pandemic still in full swing and a second wave of cases predicted to hit the country before the end of the year...which is why it's a little odd that both MGM and United Artists Releasing are pushing up their films by a week. It will likely make little difference in the grand scheme of things, but it is likely to set up No Time to Die and Bill and Ted Face the Music for the best potential box office gains by avoiding competition with Warner Bros.' heavy-hitters like Tenet. This at least seems to be the case for Bill and Ted Face the Music, which will now will open against STX's Gerard Butler action movie Greenland, another film that moved to August after Wonder Woman 1984 vacated the month.

No Time to Die is set to be the swan song for Daniel Craig's James Bond, and is directed by Cary Fukunaga, who co-wrote the script with Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, and Phoebe Waller-Bridge.Bill and Ted Face the Music, which dropped its first trailer last week, reunites Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter in a Dean Parisot-directed comedy penned by Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon.

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