Several Upcoming Movies Delayed - Why?

When’s the last time you saw a movie in a theater? For me, it was Sonic the Hedgehog in February, which I didn’t even have to wear a mask for. It made for a nice date and would end up being one of the last major movie theater releases of the year. It wouldn’t be until Tenet that we would see theaters start to reopen, doing so at an expected decline but still making hundreds of millions and garnering a profit despite its high budget. Conversely, Mulan saw a Disney+ release at a controversial, but understandable, $30 price tag.

With the ever-changing, evolving times, movie distributors are making the choice to delay surefire hits for a very long period of time. This is actually the first year that hasn’t seen a theatrical film from Marvel Studios, with Black Widow currently being delayed to 2021. Competitor DC (distributed by Warner Bros.) also delayed Wonder Woman 1984 for a good year, despite it being finished in 2019. Most of the delayed movies mentioned have been good to go for ~2 years, which is an agonizing wait after a marketing push of trailers.

So, why are distributors holding off so uncharacteristically long for films that fans are dying to see? The answer is our favorite virus from 2020 is expected to hinder sales for a while to come. There’s no accurate way to forecast it, so better safe than sorry. Why not a digital release, like Mulan? That was a huge risk and resulted in box office earnings being well below the budget. Disney can only afford to attribute its digital subscriptions so much to Mulan, especially with the additional price tag that came with it.

While it still may not be the safest play to head out to the movies, it just might be by the time the movie you’re looking forward to the most arrives. With The Batman delayed to March 4th, 2022, I can tackle my entire Netflix backlog comfortably and still have time to spare before that particular box office smash comes. Like most forms of entertainment, such as concerts and regular shopping, we’re just going to have to be patient and continue being safe in the meantime.