MILL VALLEY, CA - OCTOBER 06: Actors Amy Adams (L) and Emma Stone arrive to the opening night and ... [+]
Walt Disney has shuffled its release calendar just a little bit. Fox's The Lady in the Window, starring Amy Adams (happy birthday, natch), will now open on May 15, 2020. The film was positioned as a year-end Oscar contender, but re-shoots and thus a date change were ordered after test audiences were apparently confused by director Joe Wright and screenwriter Tray Letts' adaptation of the A. J. Finn novel.
The good news is that the thriller, about an agoraphobic woman who witness a crime while spying on her neighbors, is now in a summer slot cushioned by Black Widow at the beginning of May. Lord knows Disney would like to have one of their Fox biggies hit pay dirt before Avatar 2. It's not beyond reason that The Woman in the Window could score in early summer as we once saw on the regular with the likes of The Horse Whisperer, Monster-In-Law and Unfaithful.
Emma Stone's Cruella, a prequel to 101 Dalmatians, was set for Christmas of 2020. But it will now open over Memorial Day weekend in 2021. Director Craig Gillespie's live-action fantasy moved for two reasons. First, arguably, it was about giving breathing room to Steven Spielberg's West Side Story (opening December 18, 2020). Second, now that Aladdin broke Disney's long "curse of the Memorial Day weekend bomb," they may have renewed interest in slotting a bubbly and family-friendly flick over the family-centric holiday weekend.
'Aladdin'
After several high-profile Memorial Day weekend whiffs, namely Tomorrowland, Alice Through the Looking Glass and Solo: A Star Wars Story, the Mouse House hit one out of the park with Aladdin, with the Guy Ritchie-directed musical topping $350 million domestic and $1 billion worldwide. It also did a number on the late May/early June competition (Godzilla: King of the Monsters, Rocketman, Secret Life of Pets 2, Men in Black International, etc.), as the other studios presumed they had some breathing room between Avengers: Endgame and Toy Story 4.
I don't think Cruella is going to come anywhere near what Aladdin earned, but it presumably will be a little bit cheaper. Or maybe not, if the goal is to offer mega-budget theatricals even for stuff like Dumbo with the knowledge that A-level theatrical releases will make A-level Disney+ debuts six months later. But that's 104% speculation.
The date change is good news for Universal and DreamWorks Animation's The Croods 2, which (for now) has the year-end holiday season more to itself in terms of kiddie fare, but it's arguably bad news for any summer 2021 flicks that were counting on kids and families. Warner Bros.' Sesame Street movie (June 4) may be shaking in its boots.
'Ready Or Not'
Also, of note, Walt Disney is dating Fox's Empty Man (a horror film based on a Boom! graphic novel about a cult trying to summon supernatural baddies) for July 8, 2020. And we're getting Fox's Everybody's Taking About Jane (an adaptation of a Broadway musical about a young drag queen) for October 23, 2020.
For everyone understandably concerned about Disney ceasing to make or release "Fox movies," well, those two are about as "not a Disney flick" as you can get. Speaking of which, Fox Searchlight's delightfully mad-cap horror romp Ready or Not opens tonight. If that's what you wanted to see under the Disney umbrella when this deal was first floated in late 2017, well, there you go.
