Anyone that was looking forward to putting on their mask, grabbing some popcorn, and making their way to the theaters to see Disney’s Mulan next month might want to come up with some new plans. Yesterday, the company officially announced it would be delaying the live-action adaptation of its 1998 classic yet again after days of speculation, this time to August 21, 2020.
Disney was originally set to release Mulan on March 27, 2020, but delayed the film to July 24, 2020, due to the COVID-19 outbreak that swept the world. This marks the film’s second delay.
According to Disney, this new delay is due to the same exact reason. Although states have started reopening businesses, cases of the virus are starting to spike back up again, meaning it probably wouldn’t be a good idea to release a movie into theaters when people shouldn’t be gathering in them in the first place.
All in all, the decision to move the film to August is naive, to say the least. There’s absolutely no evidence to suggest that the United States, the biggest market for the film outside of China, will be any better when it comes to COVID-19 cases by that time. Given the recent spikes in most states, it wouldn’t be out of character to say that not a single movie will release this year.
That being said, Disney’s not exactly alone when it comes to this delay. Warner Bros. just recently delayed the upcoming Christopher Nolan film Tenet from its July release date to August 12, 2020, a week before Mulan. Still, it wouldn’t be surprising to see both films get delayed again or release on digital entirely. Only time will tell, however.
Source: Deadline
