Just when you thought it was safe to start planning how to adjust your moviegoing habits amid the COVID-19 pandemic, another round of changes have come to throw a wrench into your schedule. In a day that’s seen A Quiet Place Part II, The Lovebirds, and even F9 adjusting their release schedule, Disney has arrived to outdo those changes with three films now being removed from their schedule: Mulan, Antlers, and, surprise surprise, The New Mutants.
With its Chinese release plans already cancelled, it felt like Disney’s latest live-action remake was going to be pulled from the domestic schedule at any moment. Even in the face of the recent world premiere going on as planned, and reactions already starting to pour in, there was a sort of cautious optimism about whether we’d see the movie open as anticipated.
However, as reported by THR, the decision has finally been made to push Mulan into a new, undetermined slot of release. And with that decision came two new delays, as the Scott Cooper directed/Guillermo del Toro produced Antlers, and the long delayed X-Men spinoff The New Mutants are also part of this parcel of procrastination.
As there’s no specified replacement for any of those release dates, sources indicate that Disney is still keen on distributing those films within the calendar year of 2020. While this is the first delay for Antlers, which might benefit from a horror friendly push to a release date closer to Halloween 2020, The New Mutants has now suffered its fourth delay in a production history rife with similar uncertainties.
For now, this leaves Marvel’s Black Widow as the next Disney release to be on track for its originally scheduled slot, which was something that recent events did make seem like a reality. Now, that prospect feels shaky, as another film further down the line has made some big moves in the name of its fans.
As Universal has made the biggest move in release date musical chairs, with their postponement of F9 by almost a full year to April 2021, there’s always a chance that the Scarlett Johansson starring comic adaptation could be the next to move. With the worldwide market still puzzling out just how extreme the response to the coronavirus crisis will have to be, it definitely doesn’t seem like we’re out of the woods just yet.
For now, the Disney delays are limited to Mulan, The New Mutants, and Antlers, as all of those films are still waiting for new release windows. So, as soon as any further movement is made on any of these films, we’ll break those developments on CinemaBlend when they come. Though, if we could make a polite suggestion to the top brass at Disney, save yourself some trouble and put The New Mutants on Disney+ or Hulu as soon as possible.
