In an extensive interview with Disney’s Bob Iger, Barron’s was able to speak to Iger about how the coronavirus is impacting the Disney theme parks and their feature film release slate. Bob seemingly downplays online speculation that big films like Mulan and Black Widow would be heading to their streaming service Disney+ as stating most of their big tentpoles would be simply delayed while a few more movies may end up on streaming.
IGER: “There are some we’ve decided to put on Disney+. We already announced one, Artemis Fowl, that would have been released in theaters. Others we’ve simply delayed. In some cases, we’ve moved things onto Disney+ faster than we would have. Frozen 2 was one of them, but Onward would be the biggest example. It was in theaters when this happened. We moved to a pay-per-view period for a couple of weeks where people could buy it and own it. And then we ended up putting it on Disney+.”
“In terms of movies going ahead after Artemis, there may be a few more that we end up putting directly onto Disney+, but for the most part a lot of the big tentpole Disney films, we’ll simply wait for slots. In some cases, we’ve announced new ones already, but later on in the calendar.”
Iger didn’t mention what other films will be heading to Disney+ but I could see something like Pixar’s non-sequel Soul heading to the streaming service as it feels niche enough to head to that platform instead of waiting. Soul failed to get a new release date as Disney kept the film in it’s June release date.
Plenty of fans have speculated that The New Mutants will head to Disney+, however, might be a little too dark for the family-friendly service.
Pushing their 2020 movies directly into Disney+ wouldn’t make a lot of financial sense.
SOURCE BARRON’S
