Just when you thought things might be crawling back to something resembling normality, along comes another gut punch of film scheduling changes. Disney is the latest to start shifting movies because the current conditions signal it's the wrong time to try and open bigger movies. Among the casualties? Star Wars, Avatar and the company's live-action take on Mulan.
While the mega-franchises had some way to go before their next entries, they're still feeling the impact of either filming delays (Avatar) or other movies shifting around the schedule. The Mouse House had hoped to return to the galaxy far, far away in December 2022, but that plan is on hold for a year, with other movies in the Star Wars universe shifting accordingly.
Avatar's sequels have been the subject of endless delays and re-scheduling (and the jokes about it never arriving that have followed), but James Cameron's ambitious plan for multiple follow-ups to his 2009 hit are once again thwarted, at least in terms of a 2021 release. As he mentions in a statement.
As for Mulan, that had been one big film, alongside Tenet, that cinema chains had pegged as a release to usher patrons back to their screens. Now, Disney has pushed the movie off the calendar entirely, alongside Wes Anderson's latest, The French Dispatch. There's no sign either film will be moved to Disney+, but for now they are without a slot. “Over the last few months, it’s become clear that nothing can be set in stone when it comes to how we release films during this global health crisis, and today that means pausing our release plans for ‘Mulan’ as we assess how we can most effectively bring this film to audiences around the world,” a Disney spokesperson tells Deadline.
Yet other Disney releases remain on the calendar, with New Mutants arriving on 28 August, The King's Man on 18 September, Death On The Nile chugging in on 23 October, Black Widow the first weekend of November, Pixar's Soul on 20 November, Free Guy booting up on 11 December and West Side Story, from Steven Spielberg, dancing in on 18 December.
In related release date shuffle mews Paramount is officially moving A Quiet Place Part II to April 23 next year, while Top Gun: Maverick is taking flight to 2 July 2021. But there's good news! The Sonic The Hedgehog sequel has set a date of 8 April 2022. Yeah, thought that would cheer you up.