Fox announces release dates for Planet Of The Apes and X-Men sequels, Robopocalypse, and Independence Day 3-D

By Sean O'Neal | May 31, 2012 | 8:29pm

Aux Features Film

Those who thoroughly enjoyed the summer of 2011—or failed to learn its lessons, maybe—will be thrilled/doomed to repeat it in 2014, now that Fox has selected May 23 and July 18, respectively, as the release dates for its sequels to last year's tentpoles Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes and X-Men: First Class. Matthew Vaughn's follow-up to his X-Men reboot is as yet untitled but no doubt already being referred to as Second Class by Internet smart-asses, while Rupert Wyatt will similarly return to direct the now-confirmed Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes, because planets of apes like to get cracking in the morning, apparently, because that's when all the good ape-planeting happens. You're gonna have to get up pretty early to stop the Planet of the Apes, in other words.

Also announced in Fox's release roll call: Steven Spielberg's Robopocalypse has been moved back from next summer to April 2014, ensuring every quadrant of the movie year has at least one type of apocalypse, with its former July 3 release date now occupied by a 3-D converted version of Independence Day that's being referred to as ID43D, in keeping with its seeming like a replacement part dispassionately ordered from a catalog. But it will now seem as though Will Smith is punching you in the face while welcoming you to Earth! There's nothing dispassionate about that.