Today in news that is presumably not indicative of Dimension Films’ confidence—or lack thereof—in Amityville: The Awakening, Deadline is reporting that the latest attempt to reboot the seemingly immortal horror series has been pushed from an April 2016 release all the way to January of 2017. This is the second time the film has had its release date pushed back, and Deadline says the decision came after the studio executives saw the finished movie, but—again—this has nothing to do with its quality. Apparently, the distribution people “saw an opportunity” and decided to test a theory that “people like to be scared at the start of a year.”
Deadline backs up this theory by listing some horror movies that came out in January and did pretty well at the box office, including One Missed Call, Woman In Black 2: Angel Of Death, and The Forest. Interestingly, those examples were also pretty poorly received by critics, but that doesn’t mean there’s any reason to be concerned about Amityville: The Awakening. If anything, that’s just setting it up to buck the trend.
Amityville: The Awakening will now be in theaters on January 6, 2017, and you can see a trailer for it here.