The first release date for 20th Century Fox's franchise reboot Rise of the Apes was June 24, right at the height of summer. Then early this year they shifted it to November 23, making it a big Thanksgiving season event film. Now the studio has announced another, and hopefully final, date shift: according to the Twitter feed of marketing exec Chris Petrikin, Rise of the Apes will now open August 5 this year-- as Petrikin puts it, the "last big event movie of the summer.

August 5 was a spot originalyl occupied by Fox's David Gordon Green-directed comedy The Sitter, which Petrikin has also announced will now move to December 9. The early August spot is a traditionally good one for those last gasp summer blockbusters-- The Expendables opened there last summer, and G.I. Joe the summer before that. Throughout all of its release date changes Rise of the Apes has looked like a solid potential blockbuster, and this latest shift doesn't change that. It'll be up against the Ryan Reynolds-Jason Bateman comedy The Change Up and The Smurfs that weekend, but probably won't have much trouble beating out the competition.

As for the new December 9 spot for The Sitter, that puts it up against the mega rom-com New Year's Eve-- entirely different audiences, to say the least. Both spots seem pretty well suited to the Fox films, though with Rise of the Apes now a summer movie, we're likely to start seeing marketing materials far, far sooner than expected, so look forward to that.