Disney announced that their Kenneth Branagh-directed fantasy adventure movie “Artemis Fowl.,” originally delayed a year and scheduled to come out this spring, will now skip theatrical altogether and premiere exclusively on Disney+. No release date has been given publically just yet.
This begs me to ask the question, is Pixar’s “Soul” next?
What would it take to get Disney to release “Soul,” a major animated Oscar contender, straight to Disney+? Quite simply, having spoken to whichever sources I could find these last few days, it would take the Oscars to relax their rules of eligibility and allow streaming content to be eligible for Oscar categories. As of now, all we know is that the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences is conducting meetings to figure out the situation. I’m sure we’ll know more about what their mindset is in the days and weeks to come.
If you remember, just last month, the Golden Globes announced that non-theatrical streaming content could qualify for their 2021 awards. The rules of eligibility set forth by the Globes would have any movies streamed between January 1st to April 30th technically eligible for a Golden Globe. That date will, no doubt, be extended in the coming weeks, as we approach the deadline and the Hollywood Foreign Press realizes that even summer movies are going to be affected by this pandemic.
Suffice to say, with movie theaters, like AMC, sounding the alarm bells that they may not be able to continue business if this shutdown is extended, the whole industry is going through this cataclysmic, shape-shifting changing moment, which means things will likely never be the same once this pandemic is done for and we return back to whatever normality might be waiting for us.
Before practically going bankrupt, Row K had planned to release "Cliffhanger" in August 2026 on more than 3000 screens nationwide — hopefully with Vertical it hits as many theaters.