Studios are beginning to repopulate their film slates as Hollywood recovers from the COVID-19 outbreak. Sony recently shifted a number of their upcoming films through 2021, and now Universal is following suit.
After being delayed from its original July 3 release, Minions: The Rise of Gru, the animated Despicable Me prequel, will now hit theaters July 2, 2021.
That release date change is essentially knocking over the first domino as that was the original home of Sing 2, another Illumination Animation sequel. Sing 2 will now hit theaters December 22, 2021.
So what got shifted from December 22? Wicked! That’s right, the upcoming film adaptation of the popular Broadway musical has been bumped… and pulled right off the schedule. The move makes a lot of sense as we haven’t heard any news about the project in years. Maybe the poor reception (and I think that’s putting it lightly) has given Universal cold paws feet about attempting any more musicals.
It’s likely that over the next month we’ll see studios continue to redistribute pulled summer 2020 films throughout 2021. Either 2021 is going to be a packed year for cinema, or we’ll see a lot of films originally set to come out in 2021 bumped to 2022 (and so on).
With the 2021 slate beginning to fill up with 2020 films, where do you think notable films like Black Widow and Mulan will end up?
