So, why might a film's release date be changed or postponed? Competition could be one obstacle, whether it's the volume or the quality of opposing films. Opening a movie against three or four other wide-release competitors may not be the best idea, since then the possibility of audience dilution is in full effect. If there are many new choices for moviegoers, the odds that your film will be the first choice naturally get a bit slimmer.

The same logic holds true in some fashion for limited release films; opening against a host of other small movies (especially those opening on 10 screens or fewer) does mean that PTA success might be harder to come by, whereas finding a weekend with only one arthouse film being released means there's a better possibility you'll net good results. In a similar vein, a movie may get pulled from its original date not because it opens against a plethora of others, but simply because its competition will be so gigantic that it'll crush anything in its path. For example, this may be one reason why Midnight Meat Train was pulled from its intended release date of May 16; going up against The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian would have been box-office suicide (or perhaps box-office meat train butchery).

That's assuredly not the only reason Midnight Meat Train was pulled, however. Another reason for postponing a film's release could be a lack of confidence in it, even from its own studio or distributor. I think that's the main reason the Train has been late pulling into the box-office station. If even the people behind a certain film don't really like its chances, then there's a good chance it'll get pushed back, and it may not even see the light of day. Rather than put the film out there with little chance at success, the studio might try to find a way to market it better, or place it in a less competitive slot, or improve it somehow so that when the film finally reaches theaters, maybe it can exceed the low expectations. Sometimes this works out, but generally, crap is crap — what's the saying, a pig in a suit is still a pig? — and so not even all the delays in the world could make something like, say, Pathology a success.

A change in a film's release may also stem from necessary extensions in production schedules — one current example is Paramount's reshuffling of their down-the-road projects, including Star Trek, to account for delays caused by the WGA strike. Or, a movie might get pushed back if early awards buzz is strong. In that instance it would get moved to a slot later in the year, to come out around the same time as many other Oscar contenders. And, of course, sometimes films get delayed for seemingly no reason at all — such as almost anything being released by The Weinstein Company these days. Those guys notorious for playing musical chairs with their release dates.

What all this adds up to, then, is that you've got to be especially cautious with movies at the tail end of your slate. If you have any qualms about something being released in the last three weeks of the season, maybe it's better go with another option, because if your last-weekend filler pick gets yanked three weeks before it's supposed to open, there might not be anything satisfactory left to replace it with. Keep especially vigilant if you're tying up a significant amount of money (I'd say $10 or more) in anything that might be at all unstable when it comes to the release date. To look on the bright side for a second, though, this does mean that you might be able to reap the benefits of this specific film in later seasons — it just doesn't help you at all in the here and now.

Of course, sometimes films get their dates moved UP, for similar reasons — to avoid heavy competition, or because the studio feels a film will perform better with a "change of scenery," if you will. Maybe they make the release date sooner because buzz and anticipation is high and they don't want that to die down, or they're realizing that maybe their film has more clout than they'd anticipated. (This might be a reason that Frank Miller's The Spirit, with Scarlett Johannson, Sam Jackson and Gabriel Macht, was recently moved from January 2009 into the much-more-of-a-bloodbath month of December.) In cases like this, the ramifications for Moguls players are rarely negative; a release date moving up just means that your film has more time to earn in the current season, yet the price obviously doesn't change — that's definitely a benefit. And sometimes movies whose dates weren't originally in a particular season can be added; then you've got a whole  'nother potential force to be reckoned with, a new choice that may be a surer thing than something else you'd had to settle for.

While the effect is in most cases pretty minimal, I do also want to examine the implications of a Wednesday (or the even rarer, but about-to-be-witnessed Thursday) opening as opposed to normal Friday releases. In Ultimate Movie Moguls leagues, PTA hopefuls that open mid-week generally are able to maintain whatever head of steam they'd built up in those extra two days and keep drawing full crowds over the weekend. A great example of this is last fall's Control. When an arthouse film that opens on a Wednesday falters, it's rarely because of the early opening, but moreso because there were problems to begin with or because the footing was already shaky. In general, movies with a lot of PTA potential aren't adversely affected when they open on Wednesday. After all, Juno opened on a Wednesday last December and still ran away with the PTA crown even though all of its main competition opened two days later. Those extra two days did nothing to diminish or  'spread out' the audience; it just meant there was more time for more people to see it sooner.

With wide releases, opening on a day other than Friday is either a date gimmick (like opening directly on Valentine's Day or Christmas Day) or meant to give the film a head start on an upcoming holiday weekend. Such is the case with Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystall Skull and last summer's Transformers. Again, this doesn't do any harm to the weekend numbers for the particular movie; as you've probably ascertained for yourself, films opening on major holiday weekends are there because they are guaranteed hits. As with limited release films, any problems a Wednesday opener has are, for the most part, not expressly caused by the mid-week release date; they're things like low awareness, or poor reviews, or what have you. So, as a general rule of thumb, the specific day of the week any given film opens should be one of the last things you consider when you're putting together your slate.

While specific weekdays have very little effect, changing dates or weekends can wreak havoc on your well-laid slate plans. So, where can you turn to stay abreast of the most up-to-date information? Well, for one, most date changes with immediate ramifications for Fantasy Moguls are astutely relayed to the message boards — you won't have to travel far, and heck, that's practically what the Movers and Shakers section asks for! I haven't yet seen a deliberate attempt to mislead everyone with a falsely reported date change, but I suppose it's possible. In any case, you'll want to verify release date changes elsewhere on the web. Here are a few places to find the latest scoop when it comes to release dates:

The standard, the classic, IMDb. As a bonus, when you search a film here and click its Release Dates link you can even see when each film is being released in foreign countries, or whether it's appeared at any domestic film festivals. This gives you a hint in the right direction if you're looking to see how a movie has been critically received elsewhere, or if it's been commercially successful overseas – assuming, of course, that it's released there before it hits U.S. theaters. Using the Now Playing tab, you can also quickly size up whatever that film is opening against. Beware, though; while some date changes or new additions to the schedule are quickly updated, other times there is a lag between when the date is actually changed and when the changed date appears on IMDb. Similar database-style sites are Yahoo! Movies, Film.com and Movies.com.

The official website for the film in question. You can bet that the official advertising for a film would logically want to be as accurate as possible, so these sites will be updated soon after any changes are made. While the trailers and posters may still carry the wrong date, I'm guessing the downloadable icons and desktops, and assuredly the toolbar and front page of the site (you know, with the title and date listed there) would be updated quickly.

Movie rumor/breaking news sites or blogs such as WorstPreviews, IGN, RottenTomatoes, ComingSoon or SlashFilm. Often, studios have direct contact with the people who run these sites, so when something gets changed, the studio may send out a notification of some sort. In any case, new trailers, posters, project announcements, casting decisions, publicity photos and the like appear online at these sites soon after they are actually released, so if a movie has its release date changed, that'll probably be newsworthy enough to be mentioned. They may even be nice and tell you in the blurb what the original date was — that means you can probably guess what the motivation was behind moving the release, and make a mental note to either avoid it at all costs in future seasons, or keep it on your radar because that move just might give it a better chance. (Take Vantage Point, for example.)

In my opinion, the best source is Box Office Mojo. Every week, they post an accumulated batch (i.e. they add to it throughout the week) of new dates and changes, and it's always right up to date. For example, this week's update tells us that Lionsgate has set Oliver Stone's W biopic for release on Oct. 17, moved Religulous back from June 20 to Oct. 6, and moved Death Race up to Aug. 22. I'd only heard about the Religulous move before looking at the page, so whether that speaks to how uninformed I am or how inclusive Box Office Mojo's list is, I'll let you decide. (I'm going with the latter, though — seriously, me, uninformed? Hello, I'm Mr. INFORMATIVE.)

Finally, there are three "hot spot" weekends on the summer calendar, from which films may be more likely to be swept off to some other weekend, whether in September, October or even into 2009. Yet, there are still some films set to release those weekends that are highly likely to stick on that date. For each of the three "hot spot" weekends, I'll tell you the most likely to get moved as well as the best bets to stay on that date:

July 25
Most firmly entrenched: The X-Files: I Want to Believe. It's like this year's The Simpsons Movie. It probably won't make as much money as that did, but as with Homer and company, it's a Fox TV show being adapted to the big screen after a long delay, and this has been the target date from the beginning. It may not be the No. 1 film in America that weekend, but I sincerely doubt that it will be moved elsewhere.
Will also stick around: Step Brothers, Baghead, Brideshead Revisited, Henry Poole is Here.
Most likely to be postponed: Boy A. It's the Weinstein Co.; do I need to say more?
Be cautious with: The Longshots. Ice Cube in a family film is much more January or April territory than July, and MGM has also been known to move their releases around a lot. And while Paramount Vantage says their American Teen documentary will go wide on July 25, they said Shine a Light would go wide too, and that only ended up on 276 screens. I don't think American Teen will get over 800, at least not right off the bat ... and that might even be a bit generous.

Aug. 15
Most firmly entrenched: Tropic Thunder. DreamWorks has already moved this once, and I don't think they want to do it again.
Will also stick around: The International, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Towelhead.
Most likely to be postponed: Mirrors. Until recently, Wild Child was scheduled for this date as well, but lo and behold, it was pulled this week, with no new date set. I choose Mirrors because of its lower profile than the other three wide releases; also, given the buzz for Towelhead coming out of Sundance, I don't think that's moving either. Back to Mirrors: 24 is a successful show, but Kiefer Sutherland doesn't have much outside of that; his last movie, The Sentinel, came out in the dumping ground of April, and we've all seen how iffy any horror movie can be unless it's PG-13. Mirrors does not carry that "friendlier" rating; Alexandre Aja (of High Tension and The Hills Have Eyes) is directing, so there will be gore everywhere. Maybe it'll move into October to capitalize on the Halloween and Saw crowd, or even into next winter, but either way, if anything moves off of this August date, Mirrors will be it.

Aug. 22
Most firmly entrenched: Hamlet 2. High-profile limited releases don't have much prerogative to switch dates. It's the only limited release on the schedule for this weekend, too, so a PTA crown is almost certain.
Will also stick around: Bangkok Dangerous. Lionsgate came out with a similar action movie on this same August weekend last year: WAR. Though it only placed fifth on its opening weekend, this location in August must be a lucky charm for them.
Probably safe: Death Race. Although, it has been moved once, so maybe they'll do it again. Fly Me to the Moon 3D also fits here.
Most likely to be postponed: Crossing Over. Again, MGM/Weinstein is a potentially deadly combo when it comes to distributors. It carries a marketable star in Harrison Ford, but by now, you almost have to guess on the safe side and plan as though the Weinstein Company will botch the release somehow, whether by making a poor choice with screen count or moving it altogether.
Could also move: The Accidental Husband (already bumped back once this year), The House Bunny.

Stay tuned next week, when I cover some films priced for those of us who aren't Mr. Moneybags, but aren't penny pinchers either — it's a mid-range rundown of six sure bets priced between $6 and $24. Until then, good luck!

Mister Informative has never, ever been uninformed. About anything. Take our word for it. If you dare to dispute his informedness, take it up with him in person at misterinformative@gmail.com.