‘Quantum of Solace’ Release Date Change Promises Seven More Days of Articles Pondering the Title’s Meaning

Posted by Rob Hunter (rob@filmschoolrejects.com) on August 22, 2008

James Bond: Quantum of Solace

After Warner Bros. announced they were moving Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince’s release from November 2007 to July 2008, other studios started shuffling dates in response. The trend continued today as Sony decided to push the upcoming James Bond film, Quantum of Solace, back one week from November 7th to the 14th.

Bond films traditionally release the week before Thanksgiving, but Sony was apparently afraid of the boy wizard’s power over the box office and decided to settle for an earlier date. This practice makes sense in theory, but are the target audiences really that similar for the Bond and Potter franchises? Are there a lot of folks out there going to see both films in the theater in the first two weeks of release? (Aside from you Cole Abaius.) And audience cross-breeding aside, can one week really make that much of a difference to the box office of a film like Quantum of Solace? Sony’s chairman of worldwide marketing, Jeff Blake, seems to think so. “We believe Nov. 14 is a great date that allows us to play straight through Thanksgiving and right into Christmas… We believe this decision will give the public a wider opportunity to see the film over the holiday.”

Sensing the pain that this extra seven-day wait would inflict on the film-going public, Universal stepped up with a soothing balm of their own schedule shuffle. The Paul Rudd/Seann William Scott comedy, Role Models, has been moved up from November 14th to the 7th.


Read more articles by Rob Hunter

Related Reading:

Your Ad Here

Comment Policy: No hate speech allowed. If you must argue, please debate intelligently. Comments containing selected keywords or outbound links will be put into moderation to help prevent spam. Film School Rejects reserves the right to delete comments and ban anyone who doesn't follow the rules. We also reserve the right to modify any curse words in your comments and make you look like an idiot. Thank You!

  • I'm starting to sense an anti-Cole Abaius bias in all of Rob Hunter's articles and comments. I approve.

    The meaning of the title QUANTUM OF SOLACE is perfectly plain. I honestly don't understand the controversy. QUANTUM as we all know, means, "Filled to the brim," or "Full and overflowing," or "Can contain no more." And SOLACE, as any cursory glance at a recent Webster's will tell you, means, "awesome." Therefore, the title means, "Chock Full of Awesome," or "Face-Melting Awesome."

    Now can we put all of this title controversy behind us, please?
  • They should have called this new Bond adventure FACE-MELTING AWESOME.

    And thank you for your approval of my Abaius bias. It's a difficult burden sometimes being the sole voice of reason against the evil insanity that is the Abaius, so any support is appreciated.
  • I support Abaius, as well as the Suantum of Qolace...I mean the Something of Boris...I've written it down.
  • Sole voice of reason? Hunter, I've been against myself since the beginning.

    As for a real thought on this news - there must be some crazy nuanced understandings of release strategy that escape me. I'd love to sit down with Blake and get a real answer as to how a week makes that large a difference, especially at that point in the cycle.

    They must have a strong reason to shift, though, considering it probably cost them a decent amount in changing advertisements that have already been drawn up, not to mention all the one sheets that were printed already with that date on them. Small price to pay if they think they can rake in an extra $10 - $50 million dollars.

    And, yes, that's Ten Dollars to Fifty-Million Dollars.
  • Nevernude
    haha! we here in the UK had to wait a week for TDK, as well as about a month! for hellboy 2
blog comments powered by Disqus