Deadline reports that Warner Bros has decided to abide by Lord of the Rings tradition and move The Hobbit: There and Back Again to December 17, 2014. The film was slated to be released on July 18, 2014. The move means the film will no longer be competing against X-Men: Days of Future Past (7/18/14), Guardians of the Galaxy (8/1/14), and host of other summer films where the competition is so thick most films really have all of two weeks to recoup their costs where in the Christmas season they get around 4 weeks or more.

With the Christmas move, the new competition is Minions (spin-off from Despicable Me), Annie and Night at the Museum 3 (12/25). Basically its a kind of night and day difference in competition and one. Also probably didn't hurt WB's confidence in that time slot that The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is on the cusp of crossing the $1 billion worldwide box office threshold (for some reason studios forget that record breakers Titanic and Avatar were both Christmas releases). I always thought the summer release was rather odd as the Christmas release per movie formula also proved successful with The Lord of the Rings trilogy so why break what works. Of course adding five more months to the wait is a touch painful.

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