IMDb won't let me edit the release date for our film

Hi Michelle! 

Thanks for replying to this! To be clear, there was no release date on January 1st, 2021. The animated film is still in the very very early stages, and nowhere close to a release date. We don't have any shots boarded at all yet, and the script wasn't even copyrighted and completed until mid-January (I will attach the copyright certificate to show the date). I'm thinking that the release date somehow got added when I created the film's page in early February, but the film isn't even close to being finished, let alone released. If we could get the release date deleted, that would help us out a ton. Like I mentioned, we have potential investors looking our film up and seeing it's released so it doesn't look good on our part because we're still trying to get funding to get pre-production going. Please let me know if there's any other proof we can provide to help IMDb resolve this issue!

Thanks again for replying!! 

Hi, Michelle. Am I to understand correctly that the creator of this thread is trying to delete the release date item found on the IMDb title page in question? If so, I don't understand why that would be a problem if there is no evidence of release. Could you or the data editors involved help explain it? Not even an attribute is attached to the item. Is this one of those cases whereby the IMDb data editors are simply choosing to trust the particular contributor who placed the information there in the first place? You should at least check to see if an explanation was provided by that contributor. Your feedback shall be appreciated.

Jeorj: Without knowing the details of this situation, I do think the OP is likely telling the truth in saying that his film has not actually been released yet or even gone into principal photography.

However, I don't blame Michelle for being skeptical, because I have seen over and over again on the message boards, probably going back to the Contributors Help board era, situations where filmmakers tried to delete valid release dates because they made the film look too old for marketing purposes.

In this case, the OP seems to be telling the truth. But there have been plenty of times where the person requesting deletion of a release date should not have done so.

Sometimes releases wind up postponed but the change of future date is not conveyed onto IMDb's records, leading to situations whereby unreleased movies show up as released, just because the release date information is stored and points to a past date, which was a future date at a time further into the past. For some reason, incorrectly-predicted release dates are sometimes somehow regarded as correct by the IMDb data editors, if the information isn't deleted or updated before the point in time corresponding to the dates. That is the symptom of the lack of adequate signaling of postponement.

@Michelle

Hello Michelle!  Thank you for taking the time to respond to Brendan's post. I am the director of the short film provided above and we have been trying to get this solved for some time now. Please let us know how we can proceed. We appreciate you taking the time to help with this! 

Thank you for your help, Michelle! We really appreciate it. Hope you have a great rest of your day.