Disney's Investor Day Roundup

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Thursday, December 10 was the Walt Disney Company's Investor Day, and the studio made many exciting announcements regarding both theatrical and streaming releases for all of its studios: Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm, 20th Century Studios and Searchlight. We posted a few of the announcements on our social media accounts so if you missed them, be sure to follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

What we didn't already post is included below. Be sure to check out the trailers and sizzle reels below!

• Disney will skip theaters for two major films, sending Robert Zemeckis's live-action remake of Pinocchio, with Tom Hanks as Geppeto, and Peter Pan and Wendy, with Jude Law as Captain Hook, directly to Disney+. There was no indication at this time that either film will be Premium Access releases, The animated Raya and the Last Dragon will carry the Premium Access pricing when it debuts in the Spring at the same time it opens in theaters.
• While some films are bypassing theatrical distribution, Disney has rescheduled others that will remain exclusively on the big screen. Thor: Love and Thunder shifts from February 11, 2022 to May 6, 2022. That moves the Black Panther sequel from May 6, 2022 to July 8, 2022, which pushes Captain Marvel 2 from July 8 to November 11, 2022.
• Back on the schedule, Ryan Reynolds' Free Guy is now slated to open on May 21, 2021, followed by Kenneth Branagh's follow-up to Murder on the Orient Express, Death on the Nile is now scheduled for a September 17, 2021 release. Also, The King's Man was pushed back a month from February 12, 2021 to March 12, 2021. The thriller Antlers from Searchlight remains unscheduled.
• A Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special for Disney+ will be written and directed by Guardians director James Gunn. The special will film at the same time as Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 and will premiere on the streaming service in 2022.
• A Baby Groot series of shorts titled I Am Groot is in development for Disney+.
• Kevin Feige has revealed the third Ant-Man film will be titled Ant-Man is Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania, and that Big Little Lies actress Kathryn Newton is joining the cast as Cassie Lang. Jonathan Majors is also joining the cast as Kang the Conquerer.
• Iman Vellani, who will star in the Disney+ series Ms. Marvel, will also appear in Captain Marvel 2. Teyonah Paris, who is playing the grown up Monica Rambeau in Marvel's WandaVision series, will also bring the character to Captain Marvel 2. Akira Akbar played a younger version of the character in the first film.
• With Tatiana Maslany cast as the lead for Marvel's Disney+ series She-Hulk, Kevin Feige revealed Tim Roth will reprise his The Incredible Hulk (the Edward Norton film) character The Abomination, and Mark Ruffalo will make an appearance as Bruce Banner/The Hulk.
• Delayed from its original August 2020 release date due to coronavirus shutdowns, Disney+ has revealed Marvel's The Falcon and the Winter Soldier will debut on the service March 19, 2021.
• Other Marvel series in the works at Disney+ include Ironheart, Moon Knight, Armor Wars and Secret Invasion. Don Cheadle will return to the role of James Rhodes, aka War Machine, in Armor Wars. Samuel L. Jackson and Ben Mendelsohn (Captain Marvel) will star in Secret Invasion. Dominique Thorne will star as Riri Williams in Ironheart, the first Black female lead of a Marvel series.
• Tom Hiddleston returns to the role of Loki in his new Disney+ series which will debut in May 2021.
• Marvel is planning a new Fantastic Four film with Spider-Man: Homecoming director Jon Watts at the helm.
• Wonder Woman director Patty Jenkins will helm the Rogue One spin-off Rogue Squadron, which is currently set to be released theatrically on December 22, 2023.
• On the animation front, Disney+ will roll out four new series based on popular films. Big Hero 6 robot Baymax is getting his own series titled Baymax! The Princess and the Frog's princess will headline Tiana, and series continuing the stories of Zootopia and Moana will also stream. Baymax!, Tiana and Zootopia will bow in 2022 with Moana on the schedule for 2023. Pixar's Dug Days, a spin-off of Up, will premiere in Fall 2021, while a series based on Pixar's Cars is set for the Fall of 2022.
• Ronald D. Moore and Jon M. Chu will develop a series based on Swiss Family Robinson for Disney+.
• Marvel Studios confirmed it will not recast the role of Black Panther following Chadwick Boseman's untimely death stating Boseman's work “transcends any iteration of the character” and will “honor the legacy" while continuing to explore the world of Wakanda.
• Christian Bale finally comes to the Marvel Universe as the villain Gorr the Godbutcher in Thor: Love and Thunder.
• Production on Marvel's Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings has been completed and the full cast has been revealed: Tony Leung as Wenwu, Awkwafina as Katy, Meng’er Zhang as Xialing, Michelle Yeoh as Jiang Chan, Ronny Chieng as Jon Jon, Fala Chen as Jiang Li and Florian Munteanu as Razor Fist. The release date is July 9, 2021.
• Chris Evans will voice the character Buzz Lightyear in an all-new animated film that will tell the definitive story of the original Buzz Lightyear. The film is slated to hit theaters on June 17, 2022. Pixar also has Turning Red on the calendar for March 11, 2022.
• Walt Disney Studios' 60th animated film will be the Columbia-set Encanto, which will feature music written by Lin-Manuel Miranda and is scheduled to open November 24, 2021.
• Whoopi Goldberg will return to the role of Deloris for Disney+ original Sister Act 3, with Tyler Perry on board to produce.
• Amy Adams will return to the Enchanted role of Princess Gizelle for the Disney+ original feature Disenchanted.
• Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers gets a Disney+ reboot with Andy Samberg and John Mulaney lending their voices to the title characters. The new series is set to debut in the Spring of 2022.
• Will Smith will head to the extreme ends of the Earth in the new Nat Geo series from Darren Aronofsky, Welcome to Earth. Chris Hemsworth is also slated to star in the series Limitless, while A Real Bug's Life and America the Beautiful are also part of the Nat Geo slate. Welcome to Earth and Limitless will be Disney+ Originals.
• With the announcement of billions of dollars being poured into production on new series and movies, Disney+ will increase its subscription price to $7.99 a month in March 2021. In Europe the price will increase from €2 a month to €8 and will include the new Star service.

 

A sneak peek at Star Wars: The Bad Batch, an all-new animated Original Series from Lucasfilm Animation, coming soon to Disney+.

 

 

“Everything I did, I did for the Rebellion.” Andor, an Original Series set in the Star Wars universe, is streaming in 2022 on Disney+.

 

 

“I’ve been tracking you, Mandalorian.” Catch up on the new season of The Mandalorian, now streaming on Disney+.

 

 

Ms. Marvel, a newer character to Marvel comics has grabbed the world's imagination and we are excited to announce Iman Vellani as Kamala Khan.

 

 

"Space. Time. Reality. It's more than a linear path." WHAT IF…?, an Original Series from Marvel Studios, is coming Summer 2021 to #DisneyPlus.

 

 

“Glorious.” Loki, an Original Series from Marvel Studios, is coming May 2021 to #DisneyPlus.

 

 

“The legacy of that shield is complicated.” Marvel Studios’ The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, an Original Series, starts streaming Mar. 19 on #DisneyPlus.

 

 

"We are an unusual couple." Marvel Studios' WandaVision, an Original Series, starts streaming Jan. 15 on #DisneyPlus.

 

 

Disney shakes up its theatrical release calendar

Disney has shaken up its release calendar, moving some of its bigger titles back a full year to deal with the ongoing pandemic crisis, particularly in the US where the virus continues to rage, causing the opening of theaters to be delayed (although the AMC chain is still planning to open in August).

Right off the bat, Disney has shelved the theatrical release of Mulan indefinitely following Warner Bros' decision to do the same with Christopher Nolan's Tenet. With a $200 million price tag, Disney needs the Chinese market to help the film turn a profit and for the time being cinemas in that country are shuttered as well.

Delayed but still dated, Disney will push the Avatar sequels back by a full year each. The release schedule is now set in pencil as:

• Avatar 2 - December 16, 2022
• Avatar 3 - December 20, 2024
• Avatar 4 - December 18, 2026
• Avatar 5 - December 22, 2028

The studio also has a trio of Star Wars movies that are also pushed back a year and will be released in the odd years between the Avatar films -- December 22, 2023, December 19, 2025 and December 17, 2027.

Removed from the calendar is Wes Anderson's latest, The French Dispatch from Searchlight Pictures. It's not all terrible news though. Several films on the Disney calendar are seeing shorter delays. The Personal History of David Copperfield, also from Searchlight, is being pushed just two weeks to August 28, 2020. Horror film Antlers has been postponed until February 19, 2021. Ridley Scott's The Last Duel, with Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, will move from Christmas 2020 to October 15, 2021.

Sticking to 2020 releases, for now, are The New Mutants on August 28, 'Finger crossed' according to the Comic-Con online event. Kenneth Branagh's Death on the Nile, a sequel to the hit Murder on the Orient Express, which will shift back two weeks to October 23, 2020. Supernatural horror film The Empty Man will open on December 4. Marvel's Black Widow is still set for November 6, while Pixar's Soul will launch November 20, followed by Ryan Reynolds' action adventure Free Guy on December 11 and Steven Spielberg's West Side Story remake on December 18.

Keep in mind all of these dates are still flexible and will depend on cinemas opening worldwide. Warners has suggested Tenet could have a staggered international opening as things improve and Disney could follow their lead with Mulan, particularly if cinemas reopen widely in China. Stay tuned and we'll update this story as needed.

Big Hero 6 isn't just for kids

Everyone, by now, is familiar with the Pixar name and the high quality animated movies that studio produces, from the original Toy Story to WALL-E. Pixar has become known for the length of time they take to develop a story or nurture a script before even rendering a single pixel of information. They do have the occasional stumble (Cars 2), and are facing some backlash after announcing a fourth Toy Story movie, but for the most part they put out the best of the best in CG animated films.

Disney's CG animation arm has not been as successful, at least as far as critics are concerned. Most of their animated films are geared more towards the younger crowd … who will want all of the merchandise that goes along with the movie … and scripts usually are too juvenile for adults to bear. But, since Disney has folded Pixar into the company (complete with Pixar's John Lasseter heading up the animation unit), their CG films have grown up. Their Secret of the Wings was a pretty solid effort considering it was a direct-to-video film with limited theatrical release, and that also seemed to be a test run for the studios best (and most popular) CG animated film yet, Frozen. And now Disney has released a new CG animated film with the curious title of Big Hero 6.

Big Hero 6 tells the story of Hiro and his older brother Tadashi (who live in the mash-up city of San Fransokyo). Both are scientific geniuses, and while the older Tadashi has made something of himself, the teenaged Hiro spends time gambling in (illegal) robot fights. Knowing he can't stop Hiro from going, Tadashi offers to give him a ride to the next fight but ends up taking him to the institute he attends. A new world opens up before Hiro's eyes, and before long he is creating a new type of robot to present for consideration for admission into the institute.

The robots are a success, a "shady" businessman offers to buy them from Hiro but he is convinced it is better to accept the invitation to join the institute. After leaving the competition, the building bursts into flames, Tadashi runs in to save his professor, but an explosion spells the worst for anyone left inside the building. Depression takes over Hiro's life, but his brother's invention Baymax, a personal medical robot, Tadashi's friends and a mysterious supervillain who seems to have replicated Hiro's microbots give Hiro a new purpose in life – find out who stole his invention and killed his brother.

This really is some heady stuff for something that could be looked down upon as just a kids' movie. There certainly is more than enough colorful scenery and laugh-out-loud humor (courtesy of Baymax) for the kids, but the idea of death, revenge, retribution and sacrifice will keep adults heavily invested in the story and the characters. Tadashi's funeral scenes are very reminiscent of the wordless life story of the characters in Pixar's Up, and it will definitely leave you with some very moist eyes. Even though these characters are animated, you feel real human emotion from the "performances" that just tug on your heart.

Another scene near the end of the movie, the one involving selfless sacrifice, not only had tears rolling down my face but had the children behind me having complete emotional meltdowns. That certainly demonstrates the power of the characters to make you believe in them, and the power of the writing to fully engage you in those characters' fates. The only real weak link in the story is the villain, who comes out of nowhere and wears a kabuki mask for no other reason than associating it with the city in which they live. The final battle between Hiro and his friends (the Big Hero 6 of the title, a name they give themselves as they become real superheroes through science) is action-packed and made even more impressive with the stunning use of 3D.

Of course, the real star of the movie is Baymax, a big marshmallow of a robot that is designed to attend to anyone's medical needs, from a slight rash to emotional heartbreak. Baymax is designed to be non-threatening, hence the squishy inflatable look, kind of like a Christmas lawn decoration come to life, but he's equipped with everything one would need for medical assistance. To help fight the villain though, Hiro has to alter Baymax's programming to make him a badass fighting machine, which sometimes confuses the robot, but once Hiro pulls the disk containing the medical programming, Baymax changes into something morally questionable. It certainly is a bold move on the filmmakers' part to take what and who should be the film's good guys and turn them to the dark side, especially in a film with children as its main demographic. But by the end of the movie, you will be wanting your own Baymax.

For some reason, I find myself getting drowsy during CG animated films maybe because of the over-stimulation of the colors or the movement, or maybe even the 3D, but Big Hero 6 had me fully engaged for the entire running time. If you think cartoons are just for kids, then have your attitude readjusted by Big Hero 6. As an added bonus, the animated short Feast precedes the film, a story about the life of a cute pooch (and his owner) as they go from bachelorhood to romance and break-up, all told through the dog's eyes (and appetite). It's a charming film that has as much, if not more, heart packed into its short running time than most live action, feature length films can muster. Together, these films are a real treat for all ages.