Fast and Furious 4 Gets Early Release Date, Wolfman and Nottingham Delayed

Geez, how long has it been since I’ve had anything “Fast and Furious”-related to post for you guys? Well here’s one: Universal Pictures has shuffled their 2009 movies and assigned Justin Lin’s “The Fast and Furious 4″ sequel (or just “Fast and Furious” as it’s now officially called) to an earlier release date — 3 months earlier, to be exact. I never did get why the film is taking so long to get into theaters; production began a while back, and from what I can tell, the film looks finished, or very close to finished. Anyways, the car movie has now been moved from its originally planned June 12, 2009 release to a new April 3, 2009 date. Hear that, “Fast and Furious” lovers? Your car porn is coming 3 months earlier than you expected. Get the lubes ready, boys!

But what’s good news for “Fast and Furious” fans isn’t so hot news for horror kids waiting for Benicio Del Toro’s “The Wolfman”. The werewolf movie was a casualty of “Fast and Furious’” move, and has now found itself opening November 6 instead of its originally planned April 3 date. That’s a pretty major move for the studio, and might signal that they think the movie needs major work in post-production to make it commercially viable. Could it be that the studio really didn’t like Mark Romanek’s version of “Wolfman”, and that’s why he left the project and was replaced by Joe Johnston? Are they now going back to “fix” Romanek’s version? I guess we’ll find out when we see the finished product, and Romanek comes out decrying it — or maybe not.

Meanwhile, Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe’s “Nottingham”, their revisionist take on the Robin Hood legend that I have been dying to see, won’t even see the light of day in 2009 at all. Also according to Variety, Universal Pictures has moved the film out of 2009 entirely. Not really a surprise, as the film’s production seems to have hit a snag a while ago, and filming probably wouldn’t have started until 2009 anyway. That, and no one seems to know what the hell is going on with the movie anyways, or who is playing who.

Below: “Three months early? Dammit! That’s going to cut into my hunting quails with shotgun time!”