300: Rise of an Empire Reportedly Getting a Date Change

Russian film site Stark Industries has posted a tweet claiming that 300: Rise of an Empire, which was set to open on August 2, has vacated that release date and will be rescheduled. "In 2 separate trusted sources # 300RiseOfAnEmpire no longer Has ITS August 2nd Release Date," wrote the site, which has been known to break comic book news in the past. The August 2 date was already pretty competitive, with RED 2 and The Smurfs 2 facing off against the long-awaited 300 sequel...but yesterday, Universal announced that they were also going to move another comics adaptation--the Denzel Washington/Mark Wahlberg actioner 2 Guns--into the slot. It seemed like the date was starting to get prohibitively crowded, and depending on tracking for the films in question, it's not outside the realm of possibility that we see at least one more move. For now, though, it seems Rise of an Empire has at least steered itself clear of a week where its core audience--action fans--already had too many options. If it wanted to reschedule for another weekend in August, the following week might be an option, as it would set the movie up to compete with Disney's Planes, but that's not exactly the same audience. The 16th is pretty full up, with Kick-Ass 2 and Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters set to bow, but the rest of the month is fairly welcoming.