Another day, another Walt Disney title delayed adding further anguish to cinemas. Death On The Nile, directed and starring Kenneth Branagh as Hercule Poirot the Belgian detective was due to release December 18th.
However, with a rise in lockdowns in Europe, it looks like Disney has opted to push the release date into 2021. Cinema closures and an underwhelming domestic box office with NY/LA sites still closed this decision was inevitable.
The Ryan Reynolds vehicle Fall Guy another Fox title under the Disney banner was also set to release December 18th. This movie has also been cancelled from the December slate. That leaves (if it sticks) Warner Bros. Pictures’ Wonder Woman 1984 the only big release remaining in 2020.
The Summer of 2020 is now all in 2021
Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures
Read more: Disney Pulls Support For The U.K. And Pushes Releases Of All 2020 Blockbusters
This is an ironic throwback to the summer when all tentpole releases had been moved or cancelled. And Warner Bros. and director Christopher Nolan stepped up and released Tenet to help the theatrical experience.
This kicked started a re-opening of Cinemas worldwide, and the movie sits on $347m in gross, which is a fantastic result all things considered globally. The issue with Tenet remains its domestic gross which sits at 15%, $53m.
This is drastically low to estimates as a result of the main markets in the US still being closed throughout. As a result, this has put off most distributors from releasing major films as we’ve reported in the past.
Will Warner Bros. Pictures follow suit and push Wonder Woman 1984?
Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures
Read more: This Is Everything That’s Leaving UK Netflix In December
All eyes now look upon Warner Bros. Pictures in Burbank, California once more. Will they stick with Wonder Woman 1984 on December 25th, or will we see it move?
Prior to the second UK lockdown we’d already seen cinema chains close sites temporally. Cineworld, the second-largest chain in the world, closed all its locations to huge criticism from workers in October.
Empire Cinemas we reported were looking to close over November until December prior to lockdown. Vue and Odeon had made sites close certain days, some sites hadn’t re-opened since the first lockdown.
So, What Now?
This news doesn’t bode well for these companies, without another tentpole over the holiday season would it be worth opening? Especially if audience confidence takes a hit due to the lockdown that began November 4th.
What do you make of this news? Are you at all surprised to hear that Death On The Nile has been pushed indefinitely into 2021? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
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