Disney Delays MULAN Indefinitely and Pushes STAR WARS and AVATAR Films by a Year
Disney has announced their plans to delay their live-action adaptation of Mulan indefinitely. The film had been set to hit theaters back in March, right when the pandemic hit, and theaters were closed down. It was then pushed back to August 21st, and fans were looking forward to getting back to the theaters by mid-summer, but as we know by now, those plans have been put on the back burner.
Many were looking forward to Mulan, and figured that whether or not we saw it in theaters this summer, we would probably see it on Disney+ by Christmas, as the other Disney films, Frozen II and Onward, got early releases at the streamer. Unfortunately, we have no idea what the timeline is for the new film now, but this makes sense as everyone is just so uncertain about what the future looks like.
The other big calendar changes announced by the studio are the one year delays given to the upcoming Star Wars and Avatar films. Here are the former dates, and the new ones:
Avatar 2 (Dec. 17, 2021 is now Dec. 16, 2022), Avatar 3 (previously Dec. 22, 2023 is now Dec. 20, 2024), Avatar 4 (formerly Dec. 19, 2025 goes to Dec. 18, 2026), Avatar 5 (previously Dec. 27, 2027 goes to Dec. 22, 2028).
The untitled Star Wars trilogy movies going from Dec. 16, 2022 to Dec. 22, 2023; the second movie moving from Dec. 20, 2024 to Dec. 19, 2025, and the third movie heading from Dec. 18, 2026 to Dec. 17, 2027.
James Cameron is coming back to direct the Avatar franchise, and Taika Waititi has signed on to helm the first film in the upcoming Star Wars trilogy.
Cameron has reacted to the delay with the following statement:
Deadline reports that the following films are still set for their anticipated release dates, for the time being:
20th Century Studios’ New Mutants on Aug. 28
Searchlight’s The Personal History of David Copperfield (which goes from Aug. 14 to Aug. 28 limited release)
Matthew Vaughn’s The King’s Man on Sept. 18
Death on the Nile now on Oct. 23
Black Widow on the first weekend of November
Deep Water on Nov. 13
Pixar’s Soul on Nov. 20
The Empty Man on Dec. 4
Free Guy on Dec. 11
and Steven Spielberg’s Amblin remake West Side Story on Dec. 18.
And these other films have been rescheduled or unscheduled completely for now:
Searchlight’s Wes Anderson movie, The French Dispatch, previously dated for Oct. 16, is now unset.
Death on the Nile moves two weeks from Oct. 9 to Oct. 23.
The Empty Man from 20th Century Studios will now open on Dec. 4, instead of Aug. 7.
Searchlight’s Antlers will now open on Feb. 19, 2021.
The Last Duel from Ridley Scott and 20th Century Studios previously dated on Christmas Day (Limited) and 1/8/21 (Wide) moves to Oct. 15, 2021.
An untitled Disney Live action movie is now scheduled for Dec. 17, 2021 where Avatar 2 was.
Also, two untitled 20th Century Studios movies are off the schedule, one for Oct. 1, 2021 and another that was dated for Oct. 22, 2021.
2020 is a roller coaster, and we are just along for the ride. What movie are you most looking forward to?