Disney has made significant changes to its 2020-2021 theatrical release schedule according to The Hollywood Reporter. The studio had already delayed many high profile films, including the live-action remake of Mulan and Marvel’s Black Widow. With theater chains closed due to the coronavirus, it was the right call. Now we have almost an entirely new release schedule. And since Disney owns many other studios, this has shifted a lot of movies around.
In most cases, Disney has kept the same dates. They just belong to different movies now. On the Marvel side, Black Widow will now release on November 6th, 2020. That date used to belong to Eternals, which will now release on February 12th, 2021. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, which would have opened then, will now open on May 7th, 2021. Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness has a new release date of November 5th, 2021. Thor: Love and Thunder will release on February 18th, 2022. Black Panther 2 will keep its May 6th, 2022 release date. And Captain Marvel 2 has moved up two weeks to July 8th, 2022.
Disney also made a few changes to its own in-house live-action movie schedule. Mulan now has the optimistic release date of July 24th, 2020. It takes the spot of Jungle Cruise. That film, starring Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt, will now open a year later on July 30th, 2021. But in a stranger turn, the YA adaptation Artemis Fowl will release directly on Disney+. Its original release date was May 29th, though there’s no word yet on when it will hit the streaming site. So far, it’s the biggest film moved from a theatrical release to a streaming service due to the pandemic.
In another neck of the woods, 20th Century film Free Guy starring Ryan Reynolds will now open on December 11th, 2020. Bob’s Burgers, another 20th Century film, has been pushed back from July 17th, 2020 to April 9th, 2021. Disney made no changes to Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story, opening December 18th, or Ridley Scott’s The Last Duel, opening Christmas Day. But Wes Anderson’s The French Dispatch at Searchlight will open on October 16th instead of July 14th.
That takes care of almost everything. But there are still some Disney-owned movies without release dates. New Mutants, Woman in the Window, Antlers, and The Personal History of David Copperfield are all homeless. And as THR states, all of these new release dates could shift again if the situation doesn’t improve.
