The Ishtar Bluray no-show, I’m informed, is a delayed release action, and not the abrupt yanking that Blu-ray.com reported. Badass Digest‘s Moises Chiullan has e-mailed (and Sony Video spokesperson Fritz Friedman has just confirmed) that a substitute release date will soon be announced. Update: A top-level source says he’s heard the Bluray will now come out in May.

The Bluray.com postings is “needlessly sensationalist and inaccurate,” Chiullan contends, “since it wasn’t abruptly pulled. No screeners went out, nothing. They informed people who requested screeners that the date got pushed back a few weeks ago. A guy I talked to at Sony told me in advance of that email going out that they may be pushing it back a bit. Not canceling, mind you, but just bumping the date. It could be something as simple as compiling more extras.”

Previous posting: Early this morning Bluray.com wrote that Sony’s long-awaited Ishtar Bluray, which had been set for a 1.4.11 release, has been yanked from release without explanation. No substitute release date has been announced. I immediately called Ishtar producer/star Warren Beatty and Sony Home Video p.r. guy Fritz Friedman for an explanation, but neither picked up.

This is more than outrageous. It’s infuriating. It’s certainly the first thing to get angry about in 2011, I know that. Whenever I get angry about something I fantasize about a torch-and-pitchfork parade so I might as well go there. I’m dreaming of a march from Sony Pictures’ Culver City office all the way up Overland, up through Beverly Glen and ending outside Beatty’s home on Mulholland with the crowd holding torches and candles and singing “Amazing Grace.” I’m doing this, of course, because I know what the real reaction will probably be. Well, maybe I don’t.