Disney has postponed the release date of several hugely-anticipated films as part of a wider reshuffle amid a surge in coronavirus cases in the USA.
The remake of blockbuster Mulan has been held back indefinitely and it has also deferred four Avatar films and three untitled Star Wars movies.
Disney’s delays appeared to trigger similar announcements from other major Hollywood fim-makers.
Sony announced the upcoming Spider-Man sequel starring Tom Holland had been delayed by a month to take advantage of Avatar 2 vacating the Christmas 2021 slot.
It will now arrive in cinemas on December 17, 2021, and not November 5 as previously scheduled.
Top Gun: Maverick - the follow-up to Tom Cruise’s 1986 classic - was then pushed by Paramount from December 23 2020 to July 2 next year.
And A Quiet Place II, an early casualty of the pandemic in March, has now been delayed from September to April 23 2021.
This is the fourth postponement for Mulan, which was close to release on March 27 when the pandemic closed theatres around the world. Disney then switched it to July 24 before its most recent date of August 21.
It has now been postponed indefinitely.
A Disney representative said: “Over the last few months, it’s become clear that nothing can be set in stone when it comes to how we release films during this global health crisis, and today that means pausing our release plans for Mulan as we assess how we can most effectively bring this film to audiences around the world.”
A stream of other releases were also deferred by Disney, including Sir Ridley Scott’s historical thriller The Last Duel, which stars Ben Affleck and Matt Damon. That has shifted from December of this year to October 2021.
However, not all of Disney’s output has been delayed. Sir Kenneth Branagh’s adaptation of Agatha Christie’s Death On The Nile was pushed back two weeks to October 23, 2020.
While cinemas in England were allowed to reopen from July 4 – as long as social distancing guidelines were followed – the picture across North America is much more uncertain.
New York City and Los Angeles, the two biggest markets in the US, have no concrete plans for reopening cinemas.
