Disney delays Avatar 2, plans for Star Wars films

May 9th, 2019 | by vBollywood Admin

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Now coming up with the upcoming releases of 20th Century Fox, the Walt Disney Co. on Tuesday set forth an awe-inspiring release schedule spanning the next eight years. It includes the yet-again-postponed Avatar sequels, a new batch of “Star Wars” releases and Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story adaptation.

Since Disney’s $71.3 billion acquisition of Fox was completed in March, the studio had not budged on the listed release dates of a number of Fox releases. It was apparent to the industry that high-profile upcoming films were sure to be delayed under Disney. The delay announced on Tuesday was a familiar one: The long wait for more Avatar films will carry on a little longer.

James Cameron’s long-delayed Avatar 2 will now open in theaters on December 17, 2021, instead of its recent date of December 18, 2020 — which itself followed numerous already scrapped release dates. The subsequent Avatar sequels have moved to 2023, 2025 and 2027, respectively.

Cameron’s original Avatar had come out in 2009. Disney’s Avengers: Endgame is presently approaching the film’s $2.8 billion box-office record with $2.2 billion in worldwide ticket sales after less than two weeks of release. Disney previously dated eight Marvel movies over the next three and a half years, though it’s yet to map out its post-Endgame cinematic universe.

Disney also dated three untitled Star Wars films to arrive in theaters in 2022, 2024 and 2026. The company hasn’t revealed details of those projects. Star Wars: The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson is developing a new trilogy for the space saga.

That also means that Disney, which this December will release Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, is going to rule the next nine Christmas box office seasons with an Avatar or a Star Wars film. For the lone exception, December 2020, the company has dated Steven Spielberg’s “West Side Story” (Dec. 18) and “Cruella” (Dec. 23), a Cruella De Vil origin story starring Emma Stone.

As it was expected, a number of upcoming Fox films were delayed. James Grey’s science-fiction tale Ad Astra, with Brad Pitt, has been pushed from May 24 to September 20. The New Mutants, an X-Men movie, was pushed from this summer to April next year. The X-Men spinoff Gambit has been removed entirely. The YA adaptation Artemis Fowl moved from this August to next May.

Disney is already poised for a summer string of blockbusters including Aladdin, Toy Story 4 and The Lion King.

“With a strong summer already in place, we are eager to carry that momentum forward over the coming years thanks to a creative wellspring of bold and imaginative stories coming from our world-class studios,” Cathleen Taff, head of distribution for Disney, said in a statement.

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