Marvel has changed Ant-Man’s release date to July 17, 2015.

While that seems like no big deal, it signifies one thing: DC and Marvel are getting catty about release dates (again). The WB-owned DC and Disney-owned Marvel keep swapping dates trying to one-up each other.

Everything was going hunky-dory last week. Marvel had Ant-Man scheduled for July 31, 2015 – this then wouldn’t get in the way of Batman Vs. Superman on July 17, 2015. Marvel had another (unknown) film scheduled for May 6, 2016. This was as it should be – a Marvel movie has been on that May weekend every year from 2007 through 2015 (and has been an MCU film in 2008 and 2010 onwards). A WB movie was in that mid-July spot, as it has been since 2007 (two Batman films, three Harry Potter films, Inception).

But Batman Vs. Superman had to switch release dates, so DC decided to lay claim to Marvel’s May date, and scheduled Batman Vs. Superman for May 6, 2016 – the same day as the untitled Marvel movie. Wanting to have their cake and eat it too, they then scheduled their upcoming Pan movie for July 17, 2015, to keep the date for WB.

But Marvel did not take the insult lying down, and moved Ant-Man up two weeks to DC’s mid-July date. There was not much reasoning behind this other than to seemingly spite WB for encroaching on May. Now WB and Marvel will be directly competing on both July 17, 2015 and on May 6, 2016. Obviously, the release schedule will continue shifting so they don’t cannibalize each other, and it’ll be interesting to watch.

A short history lesson: WB and Marvel did this before. The Avengers was originally in that mid-July spot in 2011, but WB scheduled the last Harry Potter movie for that day. Marvel blinked and moved Avengers to May 2012… only to reschedule Captain America the week after Deathly Hallows, Part 2. It appeared to be done out of spite, just like this time. And sure enough, Captain America caused Harry to drop a huge 72% that weekend, taking a significant chunk of its gross.

The moral of the story is that this kind of competition results in mutually-assured destruction of box office receipts. Are you rooting for WB or Marvel, or do you just think they’re both being silly? Are you excited to get Ant-Man two weeks early? Stay tuned for more release date drama coming real soon!