Covid-19 effect: Hollywood’s release calendar reshuffled, films get pushed to 2022

As the Indian film industry awaits the fate of its movies in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, most Hollywood banners have either planned digital releases for some top titles, or reshuffled the calendar by pushing their films to even as far as 2022.

Disney’s Mulan, which was slated to be out in March, will now open on July 24, when Jungle Cruise was due to open. But that has been moved a year away to July 30, 2021.  

Marvel Studios’ Black Widow, will hit screens on November 6 instead of May 1; The Eternals has been moved from November 6 this year to February 12, 2021; and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, the sequel to the 2016 Benedict Cumberbatch film, has been pushed back from November 2021 to March 2022. The wait has become longer for those expecting Thor: Love and Thunder in November 2021, as it will now come out on February 11, 2022. 

Two Spider-Man movies - the sequel to Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, and the third instalment in the Spider-Man: Homecoming trilogy, also stand delayed. While the former has been moved from April 8, 2022, to October 7, 2022, the latter Tom Holland-starrer will swing into theatres on November 5, 2021, instead of July 16, 2021.

Venom: Let There Be Carnage, also set in the Spider-Man universe, has been pushed from October 2020 to June 25, 2021.

Lionsgate’s next instalment in the John Wick franchise will hit theatres on May 27, 2022, a year later than its previous May 21, 2021, scheduled date. 

Among the biggies is also Warner Bros’ The Batman, starring Robert Pattinson as the caped crusader. Originally set for release on June 25, 2021, it will now come on October 1, 2021; apart from Wonder Woman 1984 which was to come out in June, but was pushed to August 14.

However, the banner is sticking to its July 17 release date for Chistopher Nolan’s ambitious espionage thriller Tenet, which as per the buzz in Hollywood, may end up being a “litmus test” for the exhibition sector in the post-lockdown phase. 

The domino effect of the pandemic has resulted in multiple films, including Trolls World Tour, Artemis Fowl, Scoob, The King of Staten Island, My Spy and The Lovebirds, to take the OTT route in the US, leaving theatres in a fix over the survival of the traditional theatrical business once the lockdown subsides.

However, as Nolan, expressed in an opinion piece for The Washington Post, theatres have remained a vital part of people’s life, and “they will need our help”. And to this end, he is confident that “When this crisis passes, the need for collective human engagement, the need to live and love and laugh and cry together, will be more powerful than ever”.

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