Posted in: MGM, Movies | Tagged: mgm, movies, Respect, Tomb raider

Aretha Franklin Biopic to August, Tomb Raider 2 Delayed Indefinitely

Another day, another round of delays. This is going to be the thing we're all going to be writing about for at least the next year or so, and it's a little depressing. However, the United States is still very much failing to get its collective shit together in terms of the COVID-19 pandemic, and France is closing down for two weeks, and Germany doesn't seem that far behind. For the world that did get its collective shit together, it looks like round two is starting, and as for the United States, we never got out of round one. Anyway, the latest round of delays come from MGM courtesy of The Wrap.

Respect is a biopic of legendary singer Aretha Franklin that has been in development hell for so long that Franklin herself was involved until she passed away in 2018. Jennifer Hudson is playing the lead role, and the latest release date it had was January 8, 2021, wide release with a limited release on December 20th. In a normal year, this would be a movie sneaking in at the last minute to qualify for the Oscars before going wide in the first couple of weeks of 2021. However, this is not a normal year, and MGM has elected to move the movie from January 2021 to August 13, 2021. Again, if this were a usual year, this would be seen as a potential awards movie to one of the "dead" months. However, because 2020 is a disaster, 2021 will be a bit of a mess too, so who knows. There isn't any way to predict a dud with release dates getting shifted so much and so many movies moving to 2021 that there might not even be a dead zone next year provided the world has gotten its collective shit together.

We just reported on Tomb Raider 2 director Ben Wheatley talking about the movie and how it was in limbo due to COVID-19 related delays. The movie had a March 2021 release date and was reportedly supposed to start shooting this summer. However, that obviously did not happen, and now Wheatley has been signed on to direct the sequel to The Meg. MGM, who picked up Tomb Raider after Warner Bros. dropped out, has removed the sequel to the 2018 movie from the schedule entirely. Does that mean it's never going to come out? No, but that does mean we shouldn't expect anything for a while. The first movie was a bit of a dud, but there was potential there that perhaps Wheatley could have tapped into. We'll have to see if the Tomb Raider sequel ever ends up happening.

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