Paramount has once again delayed the release date of the Michael Bay-produced live-action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie.  The film was originally supposed to debut on December 25, 2013, then delayed to May of 2014, and eventually pushed back to June 6, 2014.  Now Paramount is moving that release date from June 6 to August 8, 2014.
 
While some of the previous delays in the release of the TMNT movie have been the result of dissatisfaction with the film’s script (see "'Turtles' Movie Pushed to 2014"), the studio said it was making the move this time because the June opening was too close to another Michael Bay film, Transformers 4.  Paramount is evidently more worried about dampening the merchandise-selling potential of the two films than about actual competition for theatrical admissions.  Certainly there is no arguing that both the Transformers and TMNT franchises have sold enormous amounts of licensed merchandise in the past.
 
But given what has happened in theaters this summer with a glut of expensive movies, many of which have either bombed or failed lived up to studio expectations, we can expect lots more of this jockeying for position as studios attempt to find just the right release date for each of their films.  The fate of Smurfs 2, which as a live-action hybrid aimed at a family audience has some similarities to the TMNT movie, is proof that a medium-budget family-oriented film can also suffer from a release date that puts it in theaters with too many other films targeting the same audience.
 
So expect this sort of "musical chairs" game with new film debut dates to continue.  With studios making so many movies of the same type, there are bound to be periods when there are too many similar films in theaters at the same time.  Even films with moderate budgets (under $100 million these days) can be high stakes gambles, and no date on the calendar is without competition--the new date for the TMNT movie has it opening just one week after Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy bows on August 1, 2014.