Paramount Pictures has rescheduled the Eddie Murphy comedy A Thousand Words, and will release it March 23, 2012, instead of January 13, 2012.

The switch puts A Thousand Words head-to-head with Lionsgate's The Hunger Games. It also puts the movie's release date just less than one month after the Academy Awards, which Murphy is hosting.

A Thousand Words is a comedy-drama about a man who learns that he has 1,000 words left to say before he will die.

The Hunger Games is based on Suzanne Collins' bestselling young adult novels, and stars Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson and Elizabeth Banks.

Paramount also moved up the release of The Devil Inside, from February 24 to January 6.

The movie is about an Italian woman whose mother is accused of murdering three people during an exorcism. The woman investigates and becomes involved in unauthorized exocrisms.

It will go up against another Lionsgate picture -- The Possession, a horror movie.