Disney recently announced that the long-delayed Artemis Fowl, directed by Kenneth Branagh, will no longer receive a theatrical release and will now debut exclusively on the Disney+ streaming service.
However, in a recent interview with Barron’s, Disney’s Bob Iger has hinted that Artemis Fowl may not be the only title to skip theatrical releases and move directly to 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,” Iger said. “In some cases, we’ve announced new ones already, but later on in the calendar.”
It’s important to note that Iger states that Disney’s major projects will still hold their theatrical release dates so it’s safe to assume projects including Mulan and Black Widow won’t be exclusively debuting on the streaming service.
Iger continued to explain that there are two exceptions to moving films over to Disney+ in a timely manner – Frozen 2 and Onward – as they were already in theatres when the current global health crisis began.
“In some cases we’ve moved things onto Disney+ faster than we would have,” he said. “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+.”
Which Disney titles do you think should move exclusively to the Disney+ streaming service? Let us know in the comments below or tweet us @flickeringmyth…
