‘Eternals’ And Other Disney Films Will Hit Theaters Before Disney+ For The Rest Of 2021
Simu Liu may have gotten upset about Disney calling Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings an “experiment” but the Mouse House does seem to be taking a number of cues from that movie’s box office success. On the heels of a strong Labor Day weekend for the Marvel film, Disney moved up the release date for Venom: There Will Be Carnage. And now it seems Disney won’t try to replicate it’s Black Widow problem with any other movies in 2021.
As Deadline reported on Friday, Disney will keep the rest of its slate of movies off of its Disney+ streaming service in the initial part of their respective theatrical windows. That means following the strategy Shang-Chi saw a lot of success in: a traditional release date in theaters without a streaming option amid the still-ongoing pandemic.
Walt Disney Animation Studios’ Encanto will bow November 24 with a 30-day exclusive theatrical window before appearing on Disney+. Five other pics will have a 45-day exclusive run in cinemas: The Last Duel (October 15), Ron’s Gone Wrong (October 22), Eternals (November 5), West Side Story (December 10) and The King’s Man (December 22).
While movies like Black Widow and Mulan were add-ons to Disney+, other films like Soul hit the platform the same day as theaters. Other studios like Warner Bros have continued that model with HBO Max, but the news means that Disney is still betting big on the box office for a number of films. Eternals is probably the most notable of those movies, of course, but it’s clear that Marvel and Disney feel like people are willing to risk a trip to the movies to stay up to date on the ever-expanding superhero canon.
[via Deadline]