Disney has just announced that the live action remake of Mulan will be delayed… again.
Mulan is the classic story of a young woman who goes to war for China in order to save elderly father from becoming a soldier again. The movie has faced criticism since it was announced with a few significant cuts from the original—namely, no singing, no Mushu, and no Li Shang, aka Disney’s OG bisexual icon. Despite these notable subtractions, Mulan has been highly anticipated by fans given that it looks to be action packed like a classic kung fu movie and still keeping the heart of the classic story alive—a bad ass woman saving her entire country.
This is the latest in Disney’s live action adaptations of cartoons, following behind Aladdin and Lion King. Unfortunately fans are going to have to wait a bit longer to take in these epic action scenes thanks to, you guessed it, COVID-19. Originally set to premier on March 27th—or as it’s now better known, the month that quarantine began—Mulan has already been pushed once to July 24th. But now that The United States are seeing a new surge of the virus and some states are gearing up for major shut downs (the sequel), Disney has decided to push the premier once again. The new new release date is set for August 21st, nearly a full six months after its original release date. Disney is showing some optimism in keeping this new release date so close to its previous correction, as some films have been pushed to the end of 2020 or even in to 2021.
COVID-19 has shut down the Disney theme parks—something that before 2020 had only happened thrice in Disneyland’s history—until further notice, but the artificial happiness mill has tried to keep hope alive with some of their movie releases. Onward was added to Disney+ very shortly after its release and the subsequent theater shut downs and Artemis Fowl didn’t get a theatrical release at all and went straight to the streaming service. To know that Disney has enough confidence in Mulan’s box office success is something of a comfort, but at the same time it’s hard to wonder if another delay will send it straight to the small screen for a small fee.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter, IGN
