Disney's Bob Iger Says More Movies Could Skip Theatrical Releases and Head to Disney+

With COVID-19 shutting down theaters, more and more films are heading to streaming service releases like Netflix and Disney+. Besides films like Artemis Fowl and Onward, former Disney CEO Bob Iger talks about what Disney's plan is for their intended theatrical releases.

Talking to Barron's, Iger commented:

"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+."

Probably Artemis Fowl is the only movie that was pulled from its theatrical release, but I have a feeling that Disney was already monitoring the reception of the film and excitement was already at an all-time low that a Disney+ release would have been the cheaper option.

Iger continues, "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."

For now, we know that Marvel films will definitely still come out in theaters, and there's probably no way that Mulan will go straight to streaming. I don't know what other films Disney could pull from their theatrical release, but I imagine it's the films that they don't expect to perform well in theaters.

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