'Chaos Walking' Delayed Again, Surprising No One

At this point, Chaos Walking is turning into one of those Hollywood urban myths, the kind of movie that we'll never see, and may not actually exist. But we'll have to wait until March 2021 to see if we'll be disproven, because, yes, Chaos Walking has been delayed again.

Variety reports that Lionsgate has postponed the Chaos Walking release date once again, to March 5, 2021. That's about a year after it was initially scheduled to be released all the way back on March 1, 2019, before it was pushed to January 22, 2021 to accommodate reshoots. But as you all know, the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic happened, and the oft-delayed Chaos Walking was pushed again.

This is just the latest wrinkle in Chaos Walking's long, difficult production saga. The dystopian sci-fi film, which stars Tom Holland and Daisy Ridley, has been in the works for nearly a decade, churning through screenwriters like Charlie Kaufman, John Lee Hancock and Gary Spinelli before landing on current screenwriter Christopher Ford (Spider-Man: Homecoming), who co-wrote the screenplay with Patric Ness, who wrote the book The Knife of Never Letting Go, upon which Chaos Walking is based. Doug Liman (The Bourne Identity) directs the movie.

But a revolving door of writers was only the beginning of the problems for Chaos Walking, which carries a production budget of around $100 million and whose first cut (which had been described as "unreleasable") was so poorly received at test screenings in 2018 that it had to undergo a week of reshoots. But this proved a problem for its big stars, with Ridley filming Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker at the time and Holland shooting Spider-Man: Far From Home. Reshoots were finally completed in May 2019 and Chaos Walking received its January 2021 release date and — finally — a trailer.

But still, a March 2021 release date seems early considering theaters likely won't be fully operational by then, even with a COVID-19 vaccine being rolled out. So it might be a few more months before we go through this whole song and dance again.

Chaos Walking also stars Mads Mikkelsen (Doctor Strange), Demián Bichir (The Hateful Eight), Cynthia Erivo (Harriet), Nick Jonas (Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle), Kurt Sutter (Sons of Anarchy), and David Oyelowo (Selma).

In the not too distant future, Todd Hewitt (Tom Holland) discovers Viola (Daisy Ridley), a mysterious girl who crash lands on his planet, where all the women have disappeared and the men are afflicted by "the Noise" – a force that puts all their thoughts on display. In this dangerous landscape, Viola's life is threatened – and as Todd vows to protect her, he will have to discover his own inner power and unlock the planet's dark secrets.