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Upcoming Movie Releases in August Risk Further Delay into September
Movies set to release in August could be pushed to September. When things with COVID-19 started to escalate in March, the film industry took a huge hit. With governments implementing new safety guidelines such as social distancing, it became increasingly hard for movies and TV shows to continue productions, leading to most of them being shut down altogether.
As a result of the Coronavirus, several Hollywood blockbusters were also delayed. The newest James Bond movie, No Time to Die, was one of the first movies to get a significant delay, being pushed back from April to late November. Soon movie theaters began shutting down due to local, state, and federal guidelines, meaning every movie meant to come out between mid-March and now have either been delayed or sent to VOD, such as Trolls: World Tour and Scoob!. Currently, theaters like AMC are set to open at the end of July, but now that may not happen.
According to Deadline, movie studios are becoming increasingly concerned about releasing films in August. Studios will reportedly be making a decision sometime after July 4th whether movies set to release in August will keep their release date or be pushed into September. Films that could be affected by this move include Tenet, Unhinged (releasing July 31st), The Broken Hearts Gallery, and Mulan. As of right now, no movies have been officially delayed.
Tenet and Mulan are two of the bigger movies that fans are hyped to see once movie theaters open back up. Both Tenet and Mulan have been delayed a few times at this point, with Christopher Nolan's Tenet now slated for an August 12th release and Mulan following soon after on August 21st. It's also worth noting that should Freestyle Releasing's drama 2 Hearts move back from it's September 11th release, Warner Bros. or Disney could move their film into that slot.
As mentioned above, delaying these films means that movie theaters will also reopen later than expected. AMC won't reopen unless new movies come out, and Regal Cinemas will probably do the same. Some studios are restarting production with safety guidelines in place, but unless cases of COVID-19 start to go down, major releases may continue to get delayed. Studios could of course decide to still release these movies in August despite how many cases of Coronavirus there are, but then they risk having their movies underperform at the box office. Moviegoers will no doubt be disappointed if these heavy hitters don't get released in August, but at least studios seem to be keeping the health of the public in mind.
Tenet (2020)
Release Date: Aug 12, 2020
Mulan (2020)
Release Date: Aug 21, 2020
