Sandler And Barrymore's Blended To Square Off Against Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes

The romantic comedy pairing of Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore has a solid history of success at the box office, with both 1998's The Wedding Singer and 2004's 50 First Dates considered big hits in theaters, but will the idea of their third time working together be enough for them to outshine a movie about apes taking over the Earth?

The Hollywood Reporter has learned that the Frank Coraci-directed Blended, which has Sandler and Barrymore back together in a romantic context, has officially been given a May 23, 2014 release date, which will put it in direct competition with Matt Reeves' Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, the highly-anticipated sequel to 2011's Rise of the Planet of the Apes starring Andy Serkis, Gary Oldman and Jason Clarke. In the comedy, the two stars will be playing single parents who have an absolutely horrible first date and then find themselves trapped together at a family resort. The movie is still filling out its cast, though it was recently announced that Community star Joel McHale is attached to play Barrymore's asshole ex-husband.

In conjunction with the release date news, Warner Bros. has also announced that they have slightly shifted Wally Pfister's directorial debut Transcendence, starring Johnny Depp. Morgan Freeman, Rebecca Hall, Paul Bettany, Kate Mara, Cillian Murphy and Clifton Collins Jr. The film was originally scheduled for April 25, 2014, but has now moved up a week to April 18, 2014, where it will now face off against the drama Heaven Is For Real, which stars Greg Kinnear and Flight's Kelly Reilly.

Eric Eisenberg
Assistant Managing Editor

Eric Eisenberg is the Assistant Managing Editor at CinemaBlend. After graduating Boston University and earning a bachelor’s degree in journalism, he took a part-time job as a staff writer for CinemaBlend, and after six months was offered the opportunity to move to Los Angeles and take on a newly created West Coast Editor position. Over a decade later, he's continuing to advance his interests and expertise. In addition to conducting filmmaker interviews and contributing to the news and feature content of the site, Eric also oversees the Movie Reviews section, writes the the weekend box office report (published Sundays), and is the site's resident Stephen King expert. He has two King-related columns.