CBS Films moves ‘Beastly’ back--way back

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Less than two months from its planned theatrical release, CBS Films’ “Beastly” is moving out of 2010, and won’t hit theaters until next March. The release date switch, announced Monday, means there won’t be a “High School Musical” alumni/romantic couple showdown on July 30, when Vanessa Hudgens’ “Beastly” was set to open opposite Universal Pictures’ “Charlie St. Cloud,” which stars Zac Efron.

CBS, which bombed with its first release (Harrison Ford’s medical drama “Extraordinary Measures”) earlier this year and did mediocre business with its second title (Jennifer Lopez’s romantic comedy “The Back-Up Plan”), said it was postponing “Beastly’s” premiere not only to steer clear of “Charlie St. Cloud” (which moved from Oct. 15 onto “Beastly’s” release date a few weeks ago) but also to wait for the Feb. 18 release of “I Am Number Four,” a science-fiction thriller from DreamWorks that stars “Beastly’s” lead opposite Hudgens, British actor Alex Pettyfer.

CBS first announced that it was leaving the summer on “Beastly’s” Facebook page on May 24, saying, “We’ve been hearing from fans, so we know that having both Zac and Vanessa’s movies opening on the same day could be a real dilemma for people, so we are moving ‘Beastly.’ ” The studio already had started promoting its adaptation of Alex Flinn’s young adult novel, itself an update of the “Beauty and the Beast” story, including launching a trailer.

A spokesman for CBS Films said the delay was a “strategic move” and that “Beastly’s” new launch on March 18, 2011, is “just a great date for the movie.”

CBS Films now won’t have a new movie in theaters until Nov. 24, when it is set to release the Dwayne Johnson hit-man drama “Faster.”

--John Horn

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