Some things never change, but Disney's movie release schedule sure has.
The company on Thursday announced a whole series of changes to its calendar, delaying all four upcoming Avatar sequels, as well as three upcoming Star Wars movies, a year each.
Avatar 2 will now release in December 2022 instead of December 2021, and the following sequels will come out in December 2024, December 2026, and December 2028. Yes, that's right: 2028, which believe it or not is a real year on the calendar; Avatar 5's release date is now an entire three presidential elections away.
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Director James Cameron in a statement explained it is "no longer possible" for the next Avatar film to make its release date next year since production work hasn't been able to resume in Los Angeles yet, although the Avatar crew did start production back up in New Zealand. Avatar 2 has been delayed repeatedly over the years — at one point it was expected in theaters in December 2014.
Meanwhile, the next Star Wars film after Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker was previously set for December 2022, giving the franchise a three year break from the big screen. But that movie will now come out in December 2023, followed by the next one in December 2025 and a third in December 2027. It still hasn't been revealed what these upcoming movies actually are, though.
In a future slightly more immediate and less fake sounding than the year 2027, Disney, as expected, also pulled the August release date of Mulan. It was scheduled to come out on August 21, but it now has no new scheduled release date at all, as Disney doesn't even attempt a guess as to when theaters might reopen. For some reason, though, New Mutants remains in its August slot. Those are the major delays for now, but it seems unlikely they'll be the last.
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