MOVIES - Nov. 4, 1987

“Punchline,” starring Sally Field and Tom Hanks as two aspiring stand-up comics, has been pulled from the Christmas release schedule by Columbia Pictures because writer-director David Seltzer didn’t want it to “get lost in the glut of openings.” The film was to open Christmas Day, and now is tentatively scheduled for a February or March release. “Punchline” is the second Columbia film to drop out of the busy Christmas season, following “Vice Versa,” an identity-switch comedy starring Judge Reinhold. The company does plan to open Bill Cosby’s “Leonard: Part 6” Dec. 18 and expand Bernardo Bertolucci’s Chinese epic “The Last Emperor” to 200 screens on Dec. 25.