"Phone Booth" Delayed Again, Surviving Christmas Slips Too

January 30, 2003

A couple of high-profile films have been pushed back from their planned release dates even further. The Colin Farrell (Minority Report) thriller, Phone Booth, scheduled for March 14, will now open, hopefully, on April 4. This recent change could have to do with the onslaught of major releases in March, notably Dreamcatcher; the John Travolta vehicle, Basic; the disaster spectacle, The Core; A View from the Top (itself suffering from stage fright), and Agent Cody Banks. Phone Booth would have run into another Farrell movie, The Recruit, co-starring Al Pacino and opening on January 31. Too much Farrell seems like a bad thing.

Phone Booth, which depicts Farrell trapped in a city phone booth as a sniper kills around him, was delayed for months from its original November 15 release after the sniper shootings plagued Washington, D.C. and the surrounding areas. The film is directed by Joel Schumacher, who could use a hit after the lackluster reception of Bad Company.

Ben Affleck and his comedy, Surviving Christmas, has been pushed back again after studio DreamWorks skipped a planned winter 2002 and '03 release. The movie, which also stars James Gandolfini and Catherine O'Hara, should open around the holiday season in 2004. These spacious maneuvers could be from the fact the studio lacks confidence in the project, always a bad sign. Surviving Christmas is directed by Mike Mitchell (Deuce Bigalow).

Matthew Dalton

Source: Upcoming Movies

Filed under: Phone Booth