Pixar’s ‘Soul’ May Release Straight to Disney+
By George Robbins
The movie industry is having the fun that never ends right now of not knowing how they are going to handle future releases. At the very least, they have no idea how they are going to handle releases in the near future as it is a lot to think about. For instance, although theaters have started reopening to the public, they have plenty of restrictions in place which limit the amount of people they can have in their venues simultaneously. This makes it just a bit more difficult for theaters and by extension, studios, to make money. Therefore, studios are now trying to make the best decisions they can to make sure that they end up making money on their movie releases.
Studios have been trying to release their films the best way that they can over the past few months by either releasing their films straight to digital or waiting out the pandemic. The latter option is one that is probably safer, but will result in them waiting a very long time if they want to make the amount of money that they were hoping for. They have been releasing movies to VOD in an effort to make money now while waiting on bigger releases to determine if it would be worth a theatrical release. The most recent releases we have seen have gone to both mediums and have been about as equally successful in the short run thus far. Disney in particular has been going more for the VOD release method as of late.
Disney was originally opposed to having their films release straight to digital, but in a sense they have come to accept it recently. This is mainly due to the fact that they really don’t want to have to keep waiting for a proper timeframe for release. They recently put ‘Mulan‘ up on Disney+ for a $30 premium for subscribers to own the movie and it resulted in a spike of downloads for the service as a whole. Seeing this as a prime example that this could help them out with other movies as well, it seems they will also be releasing Pixar’s newest movie ‘Soul’ on Disney+ as well. While this may not be guaranteed at the moment, it is most certainly a strong possibility moving forward.