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Walt disney studios
The next Mulan is a live-action remake of the hit animated movie.
Walt Disney has delayed and postponed the release of three major movies, taking another hit at movie operators struggling amid the pandemic.
New Avatar and Star Wars movies have been delayed a year, while Mulan has been completely removed from the schedules.
Mulan, already delayed due to cinema closings, was scheduled to launch in late August.
An increase in virus cases in the US and the global impact on film production forced change.
It was hoped that Mulan could spark a rally in late summer in the movies. The Avatar sequel will now be released in theaters in December 2022, and the next Star Wars movie in December 2023.
“It is clear that nothing can be made clear when it comes to how we released movies during this global health crisis,” said a Disney spokesman. “Today that means pausing our release plans for Mulan as we evaluate how we can more effectively bring this film to audiences around the world.”
On Thursday, the AMC and Cineworld cinema chains delayed the date of reopening their points of sale in the United States until at least mid-August, from the end of July.
Mulan’s delay follows Warner Bros’s decision to postpone the August release of Christopher Nolan’s thriller Tenet. Movie theater owners hoped for the two movies to save some of the lucrative summer season.
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Warner Bros
John David Washington stars in the Beginning of Warner Bros, opposite Elizabeth Debicki (sitting)
Avatar 2 would have been one of the biggest movies of next year. It is the follow-up to James Cameron’s 2009 blockbuster, which is the second highest grossing film of all time.
Another delayed Disney movie is Ridley Scott’s historic thriller The Last Duel, starring Ben Affleck and Matt Damon. That has been changed from December this year to October 2021.
While the reopening of theaters in England was allowed beginning July 4, as long as social distancing patterns were followed, the image in North America is much more uncertain.
New York and Los Angeles, the two largest markets in the United States, have no concrete plans to reopen theaters.
In China, the world’s second-largest movie market, theaters started to reopen this week after being closed for six months due to social distancing measures.
