Michael Bay’s next movie will not only have nothing to do with Transformers, it will also not be released during the summer. In a clear move to try to mimic the success of American Sniper, Paramount has decided to release Bay’s Benghazi movie in January 2016.
The film was previously titled 13 Hours, but Paramount has expanded the title to 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi. It was written by Chuck Hogan (The Town, The Strain) and is based on Mitchell Zuckoff’s book about the Sept. 11, 2012 attack on the American diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya. Four Americans were killed, including Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens.
The Hollywood Reporter notes that the cast includes John Krasinski (The Office), Dominic Fumusa (Nurse Jackie), James Badge Dale (World War Z), Toby Stephens (Black Sails) and Pablo Schreiber (The Brink). Erwin Stoff produced.
Paramount has scheduled the film for Jan. 15, 2016, which is the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend. American Sniper this year and Lone Survivor in 2014 have done well on the holiday.
Other films scheduled for the 2016 MLK holiday are Universal’s Ride Along 2, Open Road’s The Nut Job 2 and Sony’s The 5th Wave. Clearly, it’s a great weekend for movies with numbers in the title.
13 Hours also marks the start of a new direction for Bay, who is clearly interested in taking on smaller projects when he can. Mark Wahlberg still thinks that the pull of Transformers will be too strong though. The fifth film in that franchise is scheduled for 2017.