Director Lexi Alexander has announced on her Website that the release of Punisher: War Zone has been moved to December 5th. The third Marvel comics-based film of 2008, Punisher: War Zone had originally been scheduled to debut on September 12th (see "Best in Shows II"). Alexander's reps think the new date is better and it's easy to see why, since the audience often appears to suffer from "action film fatigue" by the end of the summer and most high schools and colleges are usually in session by September 12th. The December date is not the result of any re-shoots or majoring tinkering with the film--Lionsgate is betting that the film will stay in theaters long enough to take full advantage of the holiday vacations of the primarily male mid-teens-and-up action film audience.
On her blog Alexander notes that the screening of the "director's cut" of the film went well and "although I'll probably have to compromise on a few minor notes, it's not nearly as bad as some of my filmmaker friends predicted it would be. I guess I got away with an actual okay studio experience (knocking on wood since it's not quite over yet)." The new Punisher film, which is actually the third incarnation of the character to make it to the big screen, stars Ray Stephenson (from HBO's Rome) as Frank Castle.
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