Disney has already had two blockbusters skip theaters entirely and go straight to Disney+ (“Artemis Fowl.” and “Mulan”) this year, which begged me to ask the obvious question, would Pixar’s “Soul” be next? This past July, I contacted my source at the Mouse House who confirmed to me that there were indeed plans to move “Soul” to the streaming service. I reported about it and was unsurprisingly met with negative responses, mostly from people who couldn’t accept the fact that Disney would just dump such a prize-worthy feature like that as streaming content.
Well, guess what? Those same outlets who disregarded my source two months ago are now reporting that “Soul” is, drum roll please, set to premiere on Disney Plus this coming November. You can’t make this up. The real question one should be asking is why wouldn’t Disney release “Soul,” a major animated Oscar contender, straight to their streaming service? If you remember, the Oscars relaxed their rules of eligibility back on April 28th by allowing streaming content to be able to contend for almost every Oscar category. The rules had it that if a movie had originally been set with a theatrical release date only to be later moved to streaming due to the COVID-19 pandemic, then it would qualify for awards — “Soul” included.
“Soul” is set to premiere at the London Film Festival in October, that edition will be a hybrid of in-person and digital screenings. Will “Soul” be screened digitally for critics there? One can only assume that will be the case. With movie theaters, like AMC, sounding the alarm bells that they may not be able to continue business if studios continue to delay their releases until next year, the whole industry is going through this cataclysmic, shape-shifting moment, which means things will likely never be the same once this never-ending COVID-19 pandemic is finally done for. You can expect more movies to make the move to streaming before the year is over.