Paramount has once again shifted their upcoming movie schedule by delaying SpongeBob: Sponge on the Run and Mark Wahlberg’s Infinite. The coronavirus pandemic has impacted the entire world due to many industries and non-essential businesses like movie theaters closing. Theater closures have led to several movie studios delaying their upcoming releases until after the summer or even to 2021. Paramount recently moved A Quiet Place 2 to September and Top Gun: Maverick to December. Two releases the studio did still have scheduled for the summer in July and August was their entirely CGI animated SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run and Wahlberg’s action-thriller Infinite, which is based on the novel The Reincarnationist Papers. However, Paramount has now made some new adjustments to their release schedule.
In this climate of constant changes to release schedules for films, Paramount has now announced that The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run previously scheduled for July 31, 2020, will now take the August 7, 2020 release date, which previously belonged to Wahlberg’s Infinite. The change will see Wahlberg’s film go from August 7, 2020, to May 28, 2021.
Interestingly, a spokesperson for the National Association of Theater Owners said that there are “cautious plans” in place for theaters to reopen by late July. If that is true, Paramount’s new change may have been to give their SpongeBob film some breathing room before theaters hopefully reopen. Also, considering the marketing material that has already come out for SpongeBob, due to it originally having a May 22 release date, it makes sense for Paramount to get the film out before Infinite. Also, an August release makes sense considering its target audience of young kids may want to enjoy their summer by watching the film. If all goes well and theaters have reopened by July, it will be interesting to see how SpongeBob will fare and whether it will bring in its desired audience.
The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge On the Run's synopsis reads: After SpongeBob's beloved pet snail Gary is snail-napped, he and Patrick embark on an epic adventure to The Lost City of Atlantic City to bring Gary home.
Infinite's synopsis reads: A man discovers that his hallucinations are actually visions from past lives.
Source: Paramount
