Fox Dates 'Frankenstein,' 'Alvin And The Chipmunks 4' And Animated Films Through 2018

20th (or is it 21st?) Century Fox went on a release date rampage over the weekend, planting a stake in the ground for a few upcoming tentpoles as well as animated films through 2018. Ridley Scott's star-studded The Counselor has been moved up to October 25, a non-Pixar Day of the Dead animated film called Book Of Life will be released October 3, 2014, Frankenstein, starring Daniel Radcliffe and directed by Paul McGuigan, is now set for October 17, 2014 and a fourth Alvin and the Chipmunks film will be released December 11, 2015.

Fox Animation, DreamWorks Animation and Blue Sky Animation will then have five films between them released in 2017 and five more in 2018. That's in addition to the previously announced dates through 2014. See the full rundown below.@ERCBoxOffice on Twitter first reported several of these dates and Deadline added a few more. Here's the rundown of dates for the untitled animated films in 2017 and 2018:

You'd have to imagine some of those dates will be filled by How to Train Your Dragon and Kung Fu Panda sequels, as well as possible follow-ups to Epic or Turbo, depending on how the rest of the summer goes. Also, this aggressive attack on the calendar is likely a result of Pixar's similar announcement of release dates through 2018. The only overlap will be on June 16, 2017, which now has films from this batch as well as Pixar. Exciting.

Do you like this massive release date strategy?