In recent weeks there has been a torrent of film studios reshuffling their release calendars in an effort to preserve as much of 2020’s box office market as possible. With the reopening of major movie theaters subject to a bunch of factors outside of anyone’s control, a studio like Disney can't be blamed for pushing movies like this summer’s Pixar would-be blockbuster Soul into a more realistic release slot towards the end of the year. But now as a result of all the shuffling it looks like the house that Walt built is going to have an interesting close to the year, with six movies currently packed into the final eight weeks of the year.
As it stands, here’s the Walt Disney Studios release slate for November and December 2020, which includes several high profile projects from the Fox and Disney slate of films:
Cate Shortland's Black Widow (11/6)Adrian Lyne's Deep Water (11/13)Pete Docter's Soul (11/20)Shawn Levy's Free Guy (12/11)Steven Spielberg's West Side Story (12/18)Ridley Scott's The Last Duel (12/25)
The only real new movement announced by Disney’s latest round of delays has come from the fact that Soul has been moved out of its June release date to a historically pleasing release slot in November. With a November 20th, 2020 debut, the experimental film about the human soul will be released close to the 25th anniversary of the original Toy Story.
There’s two weeks in-between November 27th and December 4th which see no Disney/Fox releases on the calendar, but for the most part the last two months of the year are currently looking to be loaded tightly when it comes to the studio’s release docket. Of course, there’s some reason to believe this won’t be the final form of Disney’s end run for 2020.
One such film that could find itself bumped to next year is director Ridley Scott’s epic The Last Duel, which actually had to shut down production due to recent events. While Scott has been known to be a speed demon when it comes to getting a project done and ready for awards season (remember what he did with Christopher Plummer in All The Money In The World?), it almost feels like the wise move would be to push that film into 2021, and let Steven Spielberg’s remake of West Side Story move into the Christmas/awards season slot.
In the coming months we’ll have a better idea of when the domestic economy will open back up, allowing movie theaters to start operating again. With that crucial date up in the air, we’re not sure when things will pick up again at the box office; which means that even this list could change before we get too much further into the 2020 calendar.
In the meantime, the next Disney film on the box office calendar is Mulan, which has found itself a cozy new July 24th debut slot. But if that, or any of these other dates change, you’ll see it as it breaks on CinemaBlend.
