Tim Burton fans have had their eye on Frankenweenie since it was announced, giddy at the idea of Tim Burton getting his hands on some little clay figurines again. Unfortunately, those fans will have to wait just a little bit longer before they see what the wacky director will do with an expanded version of his 1984 short.

THR reports that Disney has decided to shift around their 2012 release schedule a bit, pushing Frankenweenie all the way back to October from it’s earlier March 9th slot, which will now be taken over by another Disney project, Andrew Stanton’s John Carter of Mars. Carter has been moved up from a June 8th slot where it was poised to make big summer numbers, but now sits as a direct competitor to Ridley Scott’s sci-fi bonanza, Prometheus.

Putting Frankenweenie, which sounds to be a light hearted Halloween-esque piece, in October makes buckets of sense, but finding Carter, a sci-fi movie, up against the veritable king of science fiction may end up being a mistake. Plenty of time before the dates for them to do a little more tweaking, however.