Welcome To Yesterday’s Release Postponed Indefinitely
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We’ve been hearing about the Michael Bay-produced time travel movie Welcome to Yesterday, originally titled Almanac, for about two years now. The movie is a found-footage flick and follows a group of teens who use a mysterious time travel device to make money with their knowledge of future events. The film sounds like a mix between Chronicle and Back to the Future Part II. The new film was supposed to be released at the end of the month on February 28, but now Paramount Pictures has decided to postpone the film, without providing a new release date.
According to THR’s Heat Vision blog, Paramount wants to give the film’s producer Michael Bay “the opportunity to focus on the smaller movie.” As we all know, Bay also has Transformers: Age of Extinction coming out this June, so it seems the studio wants the producer to give the smaller, low-budget movie a little TLC as well. It’s believed that Welcome to Yesterday might get rescheduled for this summer or fall.
The movie’s target audience is teens and college students, so it makes sense to release Welcome to Yesterday when they’re not in school. The move falls counter to the release of other found-footage genre movies such as Chronicle, Project X, and Cloverfield, all of which found success with releases in January and February. So it certainly appears that this sort of movie can succeed in those months, when there isn’t a lot going on at the box office.
However, considering that Welcome to Yesterday‘s previous release date was February 28, when students are usually in classes, a later summer or fall release could work better for Paramount and MTV Films. According to Collider’s Perri Nemiroff, Welcome to Yesterday’s plot features:
While up in his attic, Jonny Weston’s David stumbles upon his late father’s old video camera and a set of blueprints. Turns out, his dad had the key to time travel and now, with the help of his sister Christina (Ginny Gardner), two buddies Quinn and Adam (Sam Lerner and Allen Evangelista), and his crush Jessie (Sofia Black-D’Elia), David is determined to put his dad’s unrealized plans to use.
A few months ago, the first trailer for Welcome to Yesterday was released and looked like it could be a lot of fun. It mixed elements of Chronicle and the found-footage movie Project X with time travel. Doc Brown would be very upset with these kids. It also reminds me a bit of The Butterfly Effect, as the group of teenagers have to go back in time to restore the timeline.
Welcome to Yesterday stars Jonny Weston, Sofia Black D’Elia, Amy Landecker, Michelle DeFraites, Ginny Gardner, and Sam Lerner. Screenwriters Andrew Stark, Jason Pagan, and Andrew Deutschman wrote the film, while first-timer Dean Israelite directed. Welcome to Yesterday will hit theaters everywhere…well, we’ll keep you posted.
