‘Shazam,’ ‘Aquaman’ Sequels Pushed Back by Warner Bros.

thewrap.com:

Warner Bros. also announced that “House Party” and “Evil Dead Rise,” initially greenlit as HBO Max releases, will now be theatrical releases that hits the big screen in December 9, 2022 and April 21, 2023 respectively.

Earlier this year, Warner had swapped the release date spots for “Shazam 2” and “Aquaman 2,” with insiders telling TheWrap at the time that “Shazam 2” had finished postproduction while “Aquaman 2” was seeing a slowdown in its visual effects production due to high demand in the film industry from projects delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

But with this new slate change, the only remaining DC film on Warner’s 2022 slate is “Black Adam,” which is set for an Oct. 23 release.

Meanwhile, the exit of “Shazam 2” from the holiday slate will likely be the gain of 20th Century’s “Avatar: The Way of Water,” as it now stands as the sole four-quadrant blockbuster on the holiday slate against the Universal/DreamWorks’ family film “Puss in Boots: The Last Wish” and Sony’s Whitney Houston biopic “I Wanna Dance With Somebody.” In the short term, having one less superhero film to close out the year will be a blow against movie theaters looking for a strong holiday season to counter what is shaping up to be a very poor third quarter, with overall totals for the box office sinking below $100 million since the end of July and not expected to rise again until late October.