Piranha 3DD Going Straight to DVD in UK; What About in US?
Posted 01.03.12 by Ryan
In October, Dimension released the teaser trailer for Piranha 3DD, just a week after the studio moved the movie from its November 23rd opening for an unspecified 2012 release date. The move seemed to suggest that the sequel to 2010's Piranha 3D was in trouble, but the trailer, which revealed more bikini-clad bodies and David Hasselhoff's cameo seemed to counter any negative speculation by appearing to be a movie shot in the same campy spirit as the original.
In the intervening months, however, no new date for Piranha 3DD had been announced. Until now. Digital Spy (via The Playlist) recently reported that Piranha 3DD would be released on DVD in the UK in March, a move that appeared to damn a theatrical release. With a DVD release only two and a half months away, would Dimension have enough time to mount a promotional campaign for Piranha 3DD? Shock Till You Drop turned to director John Gulager (Feast) for answers, and the director responded with an email that explained what was happening with Piranha 3DD.
I’m really glad that people are interested in the progress of Piranha 3DD. I can tell you that at 6:30 pm on December 19th, my birthday, the sound mixing for Piranha 3DD was done and the film was finished. The plan is to come to theaters this Spring in 3D(D)!
The original November release date was made before we started filming. As [co-screenwriter] [Patrick] Melton says, "...the Thanksgiving release was always overly optimistic." Ha, ha, that’s a good way of putting it! The main problem was this thing called Winter. There was no way we could ask anyone to strip down and jump into the water. Besides being inhumane and stupid, even with ‘movie magic’, it would be too dangerous. So we waited until it was warm enough to shoot but not so late that our main location became unavailable (open to the public) and started shooting in real 3D on April 25th, 2011.
We released a short teaser trailer on the Spike Awards in October to give a taste of what’s in store but had to let go of the November theatrical date. The film just wasn’t totally finished. When that happened any planned releases around the world had to be scrapped and reset because Piranha 3DD must be released here, in the US, first. I think this is a Spring film anyways.
Gulager also mentioned that a November test screening was a success, but still did not mention a release date for the movie. Still, Melton confirmed to Daily Dead that a Spring theatrical release was likely "because of the 'Spring Break vibe' in the film, spring was the obvious time to open it". So, there's that. Until a date is finally announced, here's the teaser trailer once again to whet [sic] you appetites.
Written by Melton, Marcus Dunstan, and Joel Soisson, Piranha 3DD co-stars Danielle Panabaker (Friday the 13th, The Crazies), Matt Bush (Adventureland), Chris Zylka (The Amazing Spider-Man), David Koechner (Anchorman), Meagan Tandy (Unstoppable), Clu Gulager (Feast), and Gary Busey.