Posted in: Movies, Paramount Pictures | Tagged: bob marley: one love, Mean Girls, paramount, Paramount Pictures, smile 2, The Tiger’s Apprentice

Smile 2 Dated For 2024, Mean Girls Goes From Streaming to Theatrical

Smile 2 has snagged a prime time fall 2024 release date while the film adaptation of the Mean Girls musical has moved from a streaming to theatrical release.

Paramount Pictures has shifted some release dates, which has proven that they continue to have a lot of faith in theatrical releases despite Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One not doing as well as everyone thought or hoped it would. Paramount continues to absolutely kill it with horror, which was demonstrated last year with Smile, a horror movie originally developed for streaming that was eventually put into theatrical and blew all expectations out of the water. So it isn't surprising that we are getting a Smile 2 since the first film's ending demonstrated that the cycle was continuing. Horror movies don't need much time in development, so it wasn't surprising when Variety shared that Smile 2 has been dated for October 18, 2024. Talk about prime time for a horror movie.

Smile 2 was not the only movie with a new release date today. The new Mean Girls musical film also jumped from streaming to theatrical, which does show promise, but the release date for Mean Girls is January 12, 2024, which is not so great. Early January is usually a dumping ground for films that haven't already had some limited theatrical run at the end of 2023 to qualify for the Oscars. The Broadway show wasn't exactly a critical smash, and me-thinks I won't be getting a For Your Consideration mailer for the new Mean Girls even if the cast is impressive and features Angourie Rice, Reneé Rapp, Auli'i Cravalho, Jaquel Spivey, Tina Fey, Tim Meadows, Jenna Fischer, Busy Philipps, Avantika, Mahi Alam, Christopher Briney, Bebe Wood, Ashley Park, Connor Ratliff, and Jon Hamm. So, faith in theatrical releases is good, but this window is not a window that usually does well. Then again, this is the window where Scream came out in 2022, and that cleaned up, so who knows?

What is possibly relevant to Oscar races is that Bob Marley: One Love, a biopic about the legendary singer that stars Kingsley Ben-Adir, had the previous January date that Mean Girls now has. Most people would assume that meant that Paramount would do a very limited run of One Love so they can qualify for the Oscars and then release wide in January, but the film has been moved to February 14, 2024. That is far too long to qualify for the awards season, and awards voters absolutely love biopics no matter how bad they are [looking at you, Bohemian Rhapsody]. Is One Love not testing well, or will it not be ready in time? There isn't any reason given, but bumping a biopic from a window where it could still have Oscar consideration for an adaptation of a Broadway show that is an adaptation of a cult classic teen film is A Choice, if there ever was one.

Finally, while the Mean Girls thing shows promise in Paramount's commitment to theatrical releases, The Tiger's Apprentice, initially dated for January 19, 2024, has been pulled from the theatrical schedule entirely and will now go to streaming. The film, based on a book of the same name published in 2003, has been in development hell for years. Perhaps the sunk cost fallacy for this one just became too much for this one.

Enjoyed this? Please share on social media!

Stay up-to-date and support the site by following Bleeding Cool on Google News today!