Hopes for a rapid substantial resurgence at the worldwide box office were dashed when Disney and Paramount made substantial changes to their release schedules. The live-action remake Mulan, which was slated to open in August after a series of delays, joins Christopher Nolan’s Tenet to be removed from the calendar entirely, pending a new date. Both films had positioned themselves as key titles to launch a summer revival in theaters.
In a statement about the Mulan movement, Disney linked the change with new coronavirus spikes, leading many to suggest that the study was prioritizing the US market over international territories, as many of them now they are working again.
The French Dispatch, one of the titles Disney inherited from Fox Searchlight, has also been removed from the calendars. Wes Anderson’s comedy premiered at Cannes earlier this year. Meanwhile, Ridley Scott’s last duel in Ireland, starring Christian Bale and Matt Damon, moved from this Christmas to October 2021.
Disney also announced a new plan for its upcoming Avatar sequels and Star Wars-derived movies, with four Avatars slated for the Christmas holidays every two years between 2022 and 2028 and three Star Wars movies arriving every two years from 2023.
But the studio has kept a few tentpole releases in the mix for this year, including Black Widow (due November 6), Death on the Nile (October 23), and Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story (December 18).
Spielberg’s movie will no longer be vying for the vacation crowd with Tom Cruise’s late return in Top Gun’s sequel Maverick, after Paramount again shook its slate and moved the movie to July 2, 2021.
Another Paramount title coming out more than a year after its original release date is A Quiet Place 2, one of the first major casualties at the end of March. It is now on the calendar for April 2021, after a second change from September 2020.
James Bond’s 25th film No Time to Die is still slated for November. The Universal movie was the first movie to be released dramatically as the pandemic spread; The studio recently pushed the US release date up five days to November 20. The UK date remains 12 November.
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