As more and more movies get postponed due to the ongoing COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, Sony Pictures has revealed (via The Wrap) their next batch of film delays. This includes the upcoming animated feature pipeline of Sony Pictures Animation, which has now been assigned the following schedule:
- Connected – October 23, 2020
- Vivo – June 4, 2021
- Hotel Transylvania 4 – August 6, 2021
- Untitled Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse sequel – October 7, 2022
Starting off with Sony Animation’s next movie Connected, this was the least-affected of the delays. Originally a September release, the apocalyptic road-trip comedy was given a brief one-month delay, now scheduled for October 23, 2020.
Sony Animation’s two 2021 releases look to have the more-interesting date changes. First, there’s the studios’ Lin-Manuel Miranda musical Vivo, which saw itself postponed by two months from April to June 4, 2021. There is a fascinating catch to Vivo‘s new date, because two weeks afterwards, Warner Bros. will release their musical adaptation of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s In the Heights. It may seem like a weird case of film duels, but here’s hoping audiences are open for a double dose of Miranda.
Two months later during that same summer, Sony will unleash Hotel Transylvania 4, which was pushed forward from it’s original Christmas 2021 release by four months to August 6, 2021. This appears to be an obvious move to avoid day-to-day competition with Illumination’s Sing 2. But why so far from Halloween you may ask? Well, that spot is already occupied to another animated Halloween-themed sequel: MGM’s The Addams Family 2. In other words, a box office battle between Drac and Gomez might not end so well…
Finally, the highly-anticipated sequel Sony’s Oscar-winning Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse got the biggest setback of the lot. Spider-Verse 2 has been pushed back by six months from it’s original April 2022 date to October 7, 2022. It currently shares the date with an untitled Marvel Cinematic Universe entry according to Box Office Mojo.
In Sony’s live-action department, Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway, Morbius, and Ghostbusters: Afterlife were films that had earlier been rescheduled for 2021. The movies postponed this week include the following (with their new dates):
- Escape Room 2 – January 1, 2021
- Fatherhood – April 7, 2021
- Venom: Let There Be Carnage – June 15, 2021
- Uncharted – July 16, 2021
- The Man From Toronto – September 17, 2021
- Untitled MCU Spider-Man sequel – November 5, 2021
- The Nightingale – Removed
(Please note that Sony Pictures Animation is not involved in the live-action/CGI sequel Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway despite being among the credited studios in the first film.)
Be sure to visit our Animation Calendar to keep up to date with the ever-changing animated feature release schedule.
