Not neccesarily. Pixar releases teasers and posters for their movies an entire year in advance. I can't see Disney passing up the opportunity to advertise the new movie with their major blockbusters this summer.
Pixar works on their movies well in advance too. The Muppets Again began shooting around a year before it's release date. Pixar films start 3 or so years in advance. Not to mention their teasers are just shorts. Seems like those shorts are made specifically for sizzle reals or something to get the project green lit. I notice that animated teasers come a year, maybe even 2 in advance. The Simpsons one did, Despicable Me 2... but live action films, unless extremely anticipated, never come out more than a year in advance. Not even Super Hero films.
I'd have to agree with you 10000000%, Gonzo needs to be in this movie more. Infact, I'd like all the Muppets to get more screen time in this movie, most of the secondary character's appearances in "The Muppets" kinda felt like "we're here too! Blink and you'll miss us" parts. If it means less Ricky Gervais...oh well
The last movie was problematic on that front for two reasons. First off, they needed a huge plot infodump before they got into the Muppets, and even then it got rolling fairly quickly. But the bigger problem was, there were
too darn many Muppets in the film. The focus (if any) was on Kermit, Piggy, and Fozzie. And, come to think of it, that's usually where the focus was in the older films. Just less Gonzo. Then we look at the last 3 modern films, and Gonzo got more focus than Kermit. Rizzo? He had some screen time in MTM, sure... but lest we forget, one line in a song in GMC.
I just want to see an even handed focus of the Muppets this go around. It was nice to see Link Hoghtrob get screen time and Wayne and Wanda making out. But we need a bigger focus on the main 4, then the band, Scooter and Rowlf, and then all the tertiary characters in that order. And hopefully Gonzo won't be demoted to very important plot point brick joke this time.