Last night Deadline reported that the upcoming live-action take on Mulan will no longer hit cinemas next month, being taken off the release schedule for the time being, given no new date.
The report stated that the house of mouse "don’t want to have to keep rescheduling movies until it’s certain we’re up and running again", adding that Disney are remaining quiet over whether Mulan might release internationally first, before domestic.
But Mulan wasn't the only casualty. The release dates of the next untitled Star Wars trilogy movies have all moved back by a year, meaning the first will now arrive in 2023, the second in 2025 and the third has been pushed to 2027.
And the same goes for the Avatar sequels, which have been the subject of endless delays and have now been pushed back further due to production shutdowns.
Avatar 2 is now due for release in 2022, Avatar 3 for 2024, Avatar 4 for 2026 and finally Avatar 5 has been pushed to 2028.
The next Wes Anderson movie, The French Dispatch, has also been indefinitely delayed by Disney, originally due to hit cinemas this October.
The studio are holding firm for now on some releases though, with New Mutants still scheduled to arrive on 28th August, The King's Man on 18th September, Death On The Nile on 23rd October, Black Widow on 28th October, Pixar's Soul on 20th November, Free Guy on 11th December and Steven Spielberg's West Side Story on 18th December.
Whether these release dates will stick, only time will tell. Of course the studio also have the option of releasing them on their streaming service Disney+, if they wish to.
Disney aren't the only studio to have shifted their release schedule yesterday, as Paramount also had a shake up with the studio telling Variety “we are committed to the theatrical experience and our exhibition partners, and want to stress that we are confident that, when the time comes, audiences everywhere will once again enjoy the singular joy of seeing Paramount films on the big screen.”
As a result, A Quiet Place Part II has once again moved now aiming for a release of April 2021, whilst hotly anticipated sequel Top Gun: Maverick is now due to take flight in July 2021.
Of course A Quiet Place Part II was one of the first films to be pulled from the schedule as a result of the pandemic, originally meant to be released in March this year.
Meanwhile with Top Gun: Maverick, Paramount need to ensure they open to the widest possible audience, relying on good ticket sales to make back the $150 million budget.
As part of their announcement, the studio also gave the Sonic The Hedgehog sequel a date of April 2022, hoping that will be a success following the original being a box office hit earlier this year.
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