Former Disney CEO Bob Iger recently stated that more upcoming Disney films may forego a theatrical release and head straight to Disney+. When asked about the future of films currently in production, Iger had this to say:
There are some we’ve decided to put on Disney+. We already announced one, Artemis Fowl, that would have been released in theaters. Others we’ve simply delayed. In some cases, we’ve moved things onto Disney+ faster than we could have. Frozen 2 was one of them, but Onward would be the biggest example. It was in theaters when this happened. We moved to a pay-per-view period for a couple of weeks where people could buy and own it. And then we ended up putting it on Disney+.
In terms of movies after Artemis, there may be a few more that we end up putting directly onto Disney+. But for the most part, a lot of the big tent-pole Disney films, we’ll simply wait for slots. In some cases, we’ve announced new ones already, but later on in the calendar.
Disney has the advantage of having a widely subscribed exclusive streaming service on which to drop films until the quarantine is over, though as we previously reported, most Disney films are simply getting new release dates.