Harold and the Purple Crayon Movie Release Date Delayed Until 2024

Harold and the Purple Crayon is scribbling down a new 2024 release date. Sony's live-action adaptation of the beloved children's book of the same name was penciled in for January 27th this year before moving to June 30th, landing on the day Disney and Lucasfilm's Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny and Universal and DreamWorks' animated Ruby Gilman, Teenage Kraken open during the crowded summer movie season. On Tuesday, Columbia Pictures pushed back Harold's release date by 13 months: the movie now opens on August 2nd, 2024.

Sony Pictures also set dates for Crunchyroll's PSYCHO-PASS: Providence (July 14th), Columbia's My Ex-Friend's Wedding (May 10th, 2024), and Screen Gems' Horrorscope (June 28th, 2024). Also on the movie is Blumhouse's They Listen, shifting from August 25th this year to August 30th, 2024.

On its new date, Harold arrives in theaters four weeks after Universal and Illumination's animated Despicable Me 4 (July 3rd, 2024) and Disney's Mufasa: The Lion King (July 5th), two weeks after Paramount's animated Transformers One (July 19th), and one week after Marvel Studios' Thunderbolts (July 26th). It will open opposite Trap, filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan's next movie for Warner Bros. Pictures.

Directed by Carlos Saldanha (Rio, Ferdinand) in his live-action debut, Harold and the Purple Crayon is about the eponymous young boy who embarks on a magical mission with the help of his purple crayon. The adaptation of Crockett Johnson's bestselling children's book will star Zachary Levi (Shazam! Fury of the Gods), Lil Rel Howery (Vacation Friends), Zooey Deschanel (New Girl), Ravi Patel (Wonder Woman 1984), Camille Guaty (Duster), Tanya Reynolds (Sex Education), and Pete Gardner (Crazy Ex-Girlfriend).

A film adaptation of Johnson's 1955 book has been in various stages of development since the 1990s. After The Nightmare Before Christmas and James and the Giant Peach director Henry Selick withdrew from that version, Spike Jonze (Being John Malkovich, Where the Wild Things Are) spent more than a year developing an animated and live-action Harold movie. But Sony's TriStar Pictures pulled the plug because Jonze's vision was "too bold," according to original producer John B. Carls. "They didn't like my ideas, and they thought it would cost too much," Jonze told The New York Times in 2021. 

Harold and the Purple Crayon opens in theaters August 2nd, 2024.