Skip to main content

Disney delays Star Wars, Avatar releases, takes Mulan off schedule

The coronavirus has shaken up Disney’s biggest franchises — and Star Wars is the latest to be affected.

Disney announced Thursday it would push back the releases of the next set of Star Wars movies as well as James Cameron’s Avatar sequel, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The live-action Mulan remake, which was originally supposed to release in March, has also been taken off its theatrical release calendar.

Recommended Videos

“Over the last few months, it’s become clear that nothing can be set in stone when it comes to how we release films during this global health crisis, and today that means pausing our release plans for Mulan as we assess how we can most effectively bring this film to audiences around the world,” a Disney spokesperson told The Hollywood Reporter in a statement.

The next Star Wars flick, which was due to come out on December 16, 2022, will now be released over a year later on December 22, 2023, according to Disney. The next untitled film has also been bumped back from December 20, 2024, to December 19, 2025, while a third film that hasn’t been revealed was pushed from December 18, 2026, to December 17, 2027.

The Avatar sequel has been delayed to December 16, 2022; it was due to come out next December. In a post on Instagram, director James Cameron said “there is no one more disappointed about this delay than me.”

The reshuffling is the latest blow to the movie industry, which has been devastated by the coronavirus pandemic. Warner Bros. recently announced that Christopher Nolan’s next hotly anticipated blockbuster Tenet had also been delayed, with no new release date set. Tenet had been seen as a test case for Hollywood’s triumphant return to movie theaters, but with its delay, we’re likely to see other major blockbusters get pushed back or taken off the release schedule entirely.

Paul Squire
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Paul is the News Editor at Digital Trends. Before joining DT, Paul spent 3 years as an editor on the New York Post's digital…
First look at The Mandalorian & Grogu screened at Star Wars Celebration
Din Djarin flying while holding onto Grogu.

Lucasfilm didn't skimp on the first day of Star Wars Celebration 2025 in Tokyo. Hot on the heels of the announcement that Star Wars: Starfighter is heading to theaters in 2027, Lucasfilm turned the spotlight to the next film in the Star Wars franchise: The Mandalorian & Grogu. This continuation of The Mandalorian is currently in post-production, but fans in Tokyo got the chance to see the first footage from the movie.

Via The Hollywood Reporter, the film's director and co-writer, Jon Favreau, appeared alongside the other co-writer, Dave Filoni. They were also joined by Pedro Pascal, Sigourney Weaver, and even an animatronic Grogu that walked out on stage and waved to the audience.

Read more
Shawn Levy and Ryan Gosling’s Star Wars film is coming in 2027
The logo for Star Wars: Starfighter.

It's been an open secret for a while that Deadpool & Wolverine director Shawn Levy is preparing his own Star Wars movie. What we didn't realize was this project will leap over most of the other Star Wars movies and land a release date near the 50th anniversary of the franchise. At Star Wars Celebration in Tokyo, Lucasfilm officially announced Levy's film and confirmed that Barbie's Ryan Gosling will headline Star Wars: Starfighter.

https://twitter.com/starwars/status/1913040662628618670

Read more
Goodbye, Star Wars: Tony Gilroy wants to move on after Andor season 2
Cassian riding off with Luthen on a speeder in Andor.

It's the final countdown for Tony Gilroy in the Star Wars universe.

Gilroy has spent the last 10 years working on two Star Wars projects: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and Andor. The latter returns on April 22 for the second and final season of the Disney+ show. Gilroy has spent a long time in a galaxy far, far away. Because of Andor's critical success, many fans are pushing for Gilroy to work on another Star Wars project. Despite the support, Gilroy is ready to move on and do another project outside of Star Wars.

Read more