Just saw a little blip on the Variety RSS feed about Fox pushing the release of the “Fantastic Four” movie back a week to July 8th leaving the 4th of July spot to “The War of the Worlds”. Think they saw the trailer and went, “Ah crap. What the hell were we thinking trying to go head-to-head against Spielberg and Cruise? We were drunk that night, weren’t we?”

I guess they sobered up.

[Edited to add more to this.]

Since I can link to the Variety story, I’ll link to the Hollywood Reporter story (I don’t think I was logged in at HR, so it should be available to the public…for now). Apparently, they weren’t intimidated in the least by “War of the Worlds.”

“We are not running from ‘War of the Worlds,’ ” Fox president of distribution Bruce Snyder said. “This (new) date just works better for us.”

“We’re not running. We’re walking calmly toward the exit in an orderly fashion.” Well, that new date might be better, but then they’ll be going up against Nicole Kidman and Will Ferrell in the “Bewitched” remake. Sure, it’s not Spielberg/Cruise, but those Kidman and Ferrell characters do have pretty wide fanbases themselves. It’s gonna be tough…Nicole Kidman as a witch or Jessica Alba as an invisible blonde? Or a second dose of alien war machines? I think war machines might win out, but we’ll see (if Fox releases another FF trailer, I’ll give it a look and make my decision then).

Anyways, Fox probably should have just stuck to their guns with July 4th just for marketing. I mean, how much catchier can you get than “Four on the Fourth”? Besides, they’re probably getting their powers in the movie through exposure to mystical fireworks instead of cosmic rays, so it would have fit right in with the holiday. ^_^