The Fantastic Four just seems to keep getting trumped by everyone… and it hasn’t even been released yet! First, it was Pixar, who blew away their planned special effects with The Incredibles. The folks making Fantastic Four went into a panic, and got more money to throw in some snazzier, whiz bang effects as a way to compete. Now they’re getting ripped to pieces by Steven Spielberg’s War of the Worlds.

Simply put, Dakota Fanning has them scared silly. So, they’ve changed Fantastic Four’s release date so they won’t have to compete with Spielberg’s highway tossing martians. Originally slated to open over the fourth of July weekend (same as War of the Worlds), Fox has now pushed Fantastic Four back to July 8. They’ll be missing out on freedom motivated box office numbers, but will now only have to beat out Will Ferrell’s Bewitched. Frankly, I’m not so sure they’ll even be able to manage that.

Of course, Fox claims this move has nothing to do with being scared shitless by War of the Worlds: “We are not running from 'War of the Worlds… This (new) date just works better for us." Why does it work better for you? Because you won’t be eaten by martians. Why bother to deny it?