Warner Bros. Film Slate Shake-Up Shifts Paul Thomas Anderson’s ‘One Battle After Another’ Into Awards Season
Warner Bros. is making some major changes to its release slate ahead of its CinemaCon presentation in two weeks, as five films — including Paul Thomas Anderson’s “One Battle After Another” and Maggie Gyllenhaal’s “The Bride!” — see shifts on the 2025 and 2026 release schedule.
“One Battle After Another,” a crime thriller starring Leonardo DiCaprio, moves from an August 8 release to September 26. The film will still get its planned release on Imax screens — including select theaters with 70mm — and will now also get a special release on VistaVision, the extinct film format recently revived by the Oscar-winning drama “The Brutalist.”
Sources at Warner Bros. say the delay will give the studio more time to prepare VistaVision prints and projectors for the release. The move also situates the film in the more traditional period for awards contenders in the fall.
The film is one of several big, auteur-driven gambles for Warner Bros. with a reported $115 million-plus production budget, but Warner is hoping that the special formats, combined with word-of-mouth from Anderson’s devoted fans, will help build its status as a can’t-miss theatrical event.
Taking the place of “One Battle After Another” in the August 8 slot is a more traditional late summer offering: “Weapons,” a New Line horror film starring Josh Brolin and directed by “Barbarian” filmmaker Zach Cregger. Featuring multiple entwined plots surrounding the disappearance of kids in a Florida community that may have to do with the occult, “Weapons” aims to be a breakout genre hit similar to Warner’s August 2018 release “The Meg.”
The biggest leap on Warner’s slate goes to Maggie Gyllenhaal’s “The Bride!,” which moves from the Sep. 26 slot now filled by “One Battle After Another” to March 6, 2026. Starring Jessie Buckley as the titular Bride of Frankenstein’s Monster and Christian Bale as said Monster, the film reimagines the classic horror film in 1930s Chicago.
Warner is hoping that “The Bride!” can be a breakout mainstream spring hit, and theaters could use that too given how the current March box office is down 55% year-over-year with the absence of hits on the level of “Dune: Part Two,” which was a Warner release via Legendary Pictures.
Two other 2026 films that will be moved are the animated adaptation of Dr. Seuss’ “The Cat in the Hat,” which goes from March 6 to February 27, and the sci-fi film “Flowervale Street” starring Anne Hathaway and Ewan McGregor, which moves from March 13 of next year to August 14.
Warner Bros. is expected to showcase several of these films, including “One Battle After Another,” at its CinemaCon presentation in Las Vegas on April 1.
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