The end of blockbusters?
Summer blockbusters won’t come back after all — at least not in the venues where they make their money. Disney all but canceled the tentpole season late yesterday, announcing that it would “indefinitely” postpone its theatrical releases due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The live-action version of Mulan won’t be rescheduled immediately, and two other long-awaited episodes of big-ticket series will get pushed back at least a year:
Disney will indefinitely postpone the premiere of “Mulan” and push back the release of new installments in the “Avatar” and “Star Wars” film franchises, the studio announced Thursday, dealing another blow to pandemic-shuttered theaters.
The company, one of the pillars of the global entertainment business, said the decisions were made in response to theater closures and production shutdowns amid the coronavirus crisis.…
“Mulan” and “Tenet” were widely seen as bellwethers for Hollywood’s attempts to begin a financial rebound. The leading studios rely on robust box-office grosses to turn a profit on big-budget projects. “Mulan” and “Tenet” each cost roughly $200 million to produce, according to widely reported estimates.
Disney said Thursday that the pandemic has forced the company to make “additional adjustments to our longer-term slate plans,” including pushing future entries in the “Avatar” and “Star Wars” sagas back one year each.
Warner Brothers made the same call earlier this week with two of its own summer releases.
