The official site for Stephen Chow's CJ7 is now active and while its in the bare bone state at the moment, there is a list of the release date for various countries from around the world. According to the list, the release date in the US is on January 11th of next year. Thats a few weeks earlier than the Hong Kong release date. By golly, Sony Pictures doesn't mess around. If your not from the US, take a gander at the list to see when CJ7 will show up in your country.
January 11!?
Be still my beating heart, I may have just had a bout of the vapors. Day and date makes the most sense, but if they want to give it to us early, that's fine, just fine, with me. Still amazed Chrysler's not giving Sony any trouble over using the title in the US.
On the one hand, nice to see someone actually acknowledge that heel-dragging on the US release kills the US box office take; the people most likely to want to see it are also the most likely to get it from the Internet or their DVD importer of choice if the American release date is a nearly a year later, as is the norm. On the other hand, if it opens here first, gets terrible reviews, and craters, it can't possibly help things having a couple of weeks for that news to circulate around the internet.
Therefore I think I'll take this as Sony's vote of confidence in the film.
Or it's a typo and that was supposed to say 1/11/2009.