‘Mulan’ Releasing Straight to Disney+
By George Robbins
Theatrical movie releases have been nothing other than plagued ever since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. Every time a company plans a release date for a film, they have almost no choice but to end up pushing it back, or in some cases they are forced to go straight to digital. This pandemic is very fluid and any day, the number of new cases can rise exponentially which ends up creating even more restrictions. With these restrictions in place less and less people are allowed to leave their homes to go out and do things. If people cannot go outside, then businesses like movie theaters that rely on capacity to make any earnings will get nothing.
If theaters don’t have much of an incentive to open their doors, then they simply won’t and this is how we have gone so long with theaters staying shut down. However, it seems that AMC is intent on opening in mid-August regardless of whether any new movies release or not. The only thing that they will be able to do is play older movies like other theaters have been doing. Unfortunately, there is no guarantee as to whether this will work out or not due to how few theaters have been reopened since the beginning of the pandemic. This gives us very little to look at in terms of whether this will work out or not, but they are going to be trying their best anyway.
With theaters mostly shut down and a large majority still going to remain shut down for the foreseeable future, companies are not very forthcoming with information on release dates. They are constantly trying to decide when they should actually release their films or if they should just make them available digitally. Companies have been forced to look at whether their films are cost effective enough for them to keep delaying them or not. In the case of ‘Tenet,’ Warner Bros. has decided to delay the film indefinitely domestically, but they will be releasing it in 70 other countries. This comes after the decision that the climate around the pandemic in the U.S. is just too volatile for them to try and have any kind of full theatrical release. Other companies are continuing to simply push back their release dates as time goes on.
Even though many companies are pushing back release dates, as previously stated, if they are not cost effective then a new plan must be drawn up. If a movie is just simply not worth the time and money to have it release at some later undetermined date, then it will just end up being released digitally. Disney seems to have decided that it is not worth waiting to release their new live-action version of the movie ‘Mulan’ anymore as it has been delayed since March already. They will be making it available to watch on Disney+ for $29.99 starting on Friday, September 4th and plans to release it theatrically on the same day in select markets where Disney+ isn’t available and/or movie theaters are open for business. This is just simply the better business option for them at this point in terms of cost effectiveness.