Variety is reporting that the May 8th premiere of Paramount’s Star Trek is the latest casualty of the outbreak of swine flu in Mexico.  With Mexican theaters shuttered, studios have few options for rescheduling since no one is sure when theaters will reopen and the busy summer schedule means that these postponed early season releases will likely face lots of stiff competition from other films when they do open.  Fox, for example, has Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian scheduled for a May 22nd release, which could complicate the rescheduling of the same studio's Wolverine.

Betting that the outbreak won’t spread quickly to other countries, Paramount is going ahead with the release of Star Trek in over 100 other overseas markets on May 8th.  As Variety points out the reason that studios are considering delaying the launches of other films including Sony’s Angels a & Demons, which was scheduled to debut in Mexico on May 15th, “is that they don't want to make huge media spends in the final days before a film's release and then have to cancel on the eve of the opening,” as happened with Fox in Mexico where elaborate plans for the X-Men Origins: Wolverine debut including a visit by star Hugh Jackman had to be scrapped at the last minute.

Mexico is an important market for American films.  X-Men: The Last Stand earned $16.5 million of its $224 million foreign gross in Mexico, and Fox was hoping to do as well or better with X-Men Origins: Wolverine.