Remember how the summer of 2020
was supposed to be chock-full of some highly-anticipated blockbuster films from
some of the biggest studios around? The scheduling of those movies was pretty
ironclad as early as the year before. Then the novel coronavirus outbreak
became a pandemic and, as cinemas tended to gather lots of people, they were
closed worldwide alongside so many other businesses. With the year on its
second half, but with movie-houses still hesitant to reopen even with protocols
for limited capacity, some studios are reconsidering their late-year film premiere
reshuffles. Disney, for example, has decided on taking drastic steps with one
of theirs.
Variety tells us that Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures has
delayed the release of the live-action remake of their 1998 animated classic “Mulan”
for a third time, and more, as this latest postponement is now indefinite in
duration. This is incredibly sobering news for Disney fans who have been
disappointed at missing the original March 27 premiere because of COVID-19. The
studio had set a new date for July 24, only to push it back again to August 21
after conditions in North America do not appear to have improved.
A Disney spokesperson remarked
about the indefinite postponement of “Mulan” saying that no release schedule
for movies can be set in stone anymore due to the dynamic situation caused by
the COVID pandemic. The result is that Disney has to not give a premiere date
while they continue to assess the levels of freedom for both cinemas and
moviegoers worldwide to operate (for the former) and go to watch (for the
latter). While theaters in China, presently the world’s biggest film audience,
have begun to gradually reopen with limited seating capacity, many major North
American movie-house chains have been a bit skittish about resuming operation.
Disney’s action is being mirrored
by other studios. Their longtime rival Warner Bros. Pictures is also putting
their Christopher Noland-directed film “Tenet” on a floating release schedule
for any date left in the year 2020. Some fans of “Mulan” however have been
expressing concern on social media that Disney might simply put the live-action
remake into a digital release for Disney+, similar to the film recording of hit
Broadway musical “Hamilton” earlier this month, when it was supposed to
premiere cinematically in 2021. Another thing the indefinite hiatus is doing is
keeping the threats of boycotts from Hong Kong moviegoers from being realized
for now.
“Mulan” is directed by Niki Caro,
and stars Liu Yifei, Donnie Yen, Jason Scott Lee, Gong Li and Jet Li.
Image courtesy of Vulture
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