The Walt Disney Studios has revealed a new batch of film delays in response to the accelerating COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak. Among those films in the schedule, the only animated feature affected so far is Bob’s Burgers: The Movie from 20th Century Studios.
Based on the hit Fox animated sitcom, the big-screen adventure of Bob Belcher and his loving family was originally supposed to release on July 17 this year but has now been pushed back nine months to April 9, 2021. Considering the lack of advertising and press releases preceding its former date, this delay was rather expected.
Bob’s Burgers creator Loren Bouchard (who’s also directing the movie) confirmed the film’s delay through two Twitter responses:
20th Century’s two other animated features including Locksmith’s Ron’s Gone Wrong and Blue Sky’s Nimona remain on the schedule unchanged. This also applies to all future Pixar and Disney Animation releases like Soul and Raya and the Last Dragon.
On the live-action side Disney, the Mulan remake has been optimistically rescheduled for July 24, 2020, while Jungle Cruise has been pushed back a full year to July 30, 2021. 20th Century’s Ryan Reynolds comedy Free Guy got postponed to December 11, 2020.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe also got its setback with their lineup of movies being delayed. Disney and Marvel hope to get the universe back on track with Black Widow rescheduled for November 6, 2020, and The Eternals moving to February 12, 2021, amongst others.
One of the more notably-affected movies is Disney’s live-action science fantasy Artemis Fowl, which was removed from its May 2020 theatrical release. Instead, it will be sent directly to Disney+ at an unspecified date.
20th Century’s The New Mutants, Antlers, and The Woman in the Window remain undated after earlier been pulled from the schedule.
Disney’s revised theatrical schedule can be viewed here. For the current schedule of all mainstream animated movies, please visit our Animation Calendar.