20th Century Fox Pushes Back Alita and The Predator

20th Century Fox has set new dates for four of its upcoming films, including Alita and The Predator. The Robert Rodriguez-directed Alita: Battle Angel was going to be released on July 20, 2018 but has now been pushed back to December 21, 2018. The film will have some big competition on that date, with Aquaman, Bumblebee, and Holmes & Watson scheduled to hit theaters that same day.

Visionary filmmakers James Cameron (Avatar) and Robert Rodriguez (Sin City) create a groundbreaking new heroine in Alita: Battle Angel, an action-packed story of hope, love and empowerment. Set several centuries in the future, the abandoned Alita (Rosa Salazar) is found in the scrapyard of Iron City by Ido (Christoph Waltz), a compassionate cyber-doctor who takes the unconscious cyborg Alita to his clinic. When Alita awakens she has no memory of who she is, nor does she have any recognition of the world she finds herself in. Everything is new to Alita, every experience a first. As she learns to navigate her new life and the treacherous streets of Iron City, Ido tries to shield Alita from her mysterious past while her street-smart new friend, Hugo (Keean Johnson), offers instead to help trigger her memories. A growing affection develops between the two until deadly forces come after Alita and threaten her newfound relationships. It is then that Alita discovers she has extraordinary fighting abilities that could be used to save the friends and family she’s grown to love. Determined to uncover the truth behind her origin, Alita sets out on a journey that will lead her to take on the injustices of this dark, corrupt world, and discover that one young woman can change the world in which she lives.

The Shane Black-directed The Predator is moving from August 3, 2018 to September 14, 2018. The other films scheduled for that date are Alpha and Fighting With My Family. The Predator cast includes Boyd Holbrook (Narcos, Logan), Olivia Munn (X-Men: Apocalypse), Trevante Rhodes (Moonlight), Keegan-Michael Key (Keanu, Key & Peele), Thomas Jane (The Punisher), Jacob Tremblay (Room), Yvonne Strahovski (Dexter), Alfie Allen (Game of Thrones), Sterling K. Brown (The People vs. O.J. Simpson, This is Us) and Edward James Olmos (Battlestar Galactica, Blade Runner).

Swapping dates with The Predator is Fox’s The Darkest Minds, starring Gwendoline Christie, Amandla Stenberg, and Mandy Moore. The film was scheduled for September 14 but will now open on August 3.

After the success of Murder on the Orient Express, Kenneth Branagh will return as Agatha Christie’s detective Hercule Poirot in Death on the Nile, which 20th Century Fox has set for a November 8, 2019 release. James Bond 25 and Noelle are also scheduled for that date. That will be almost exactly two years after the release of Orient Express. Death on the Nile was published in 1937. In the story, Poirot was on vacation in Egypt and ends up investigating a murder that resulted from a love triangle.

And lastly, 20th Century Fox has also set a March 5, 2021 release date for Blue Sky Studios’ animated film, Foster. Not much is known about that title yet.