Disney has announced that a batch of their upcoming releases are being delayed amid the COVID-19 crisis. The first to be pushed is Pixar's SOUL, which is now floating from its original June 19 release to November 20. Due to the shift, Disney is also moving their animated feature RAYA AND THE LAST DRAGON from its November 25 launch to March 12, 2021. As it happens, the aforementioned animations aren't the only films that the House of Mouse are looking to release at a later date. It's also been confirmed that an untitled Disney live-action release that was previously dated for March 12, 2021 has been removed from their schedule.
Directed by Pete Docter, SOUL imagines that every person on earth comes pre-installed with a soul formed and perfected in a cosmic realm. Jamie Foxx will play a middle-school music teacher on earth who dreams of playing at legendary New York jazz club The Blue Note. After the wrong step into an open sewer grate, Joe slips back into his soul form back in the other realm — with some existential work to do before he might land his big gig.
In addition to Foxx, the upcoming animated feature also stars Tina Fey, Daveed Diggs, Questlove, and Phylicia Rashad. Written by Docter and Mike Jones (EVENHAND), SOUL will no doubt be a cosmic-level exploration of sound, emotion, and how music connects us all – both in body as well as spirit.
As for RAYA AND THE LAST DRAGON, the animated film directed by Paul Briggs and Dean Wellins take place in a realm known as Lumandra. The mythical land is a re-imagined Earth inhabited by an ancient civilization, where a warrior named Raya is determined to find the last dragon. RICK AND MORTY alumna Cassie Steele will voice the film's title character, while THE FAREWELL's Awkwafina is set to star as the character Sisu.
With so many films being shuffled around amid the COVID-19 crisis, it's easy to forget that three Star Wars-related featured have been previously dated by Disney. To begin, there's a Star Wars film dated for December 16, 2022, with another expected to land on December 20, 2024. Finally, there's one more Star Wars feature dated for December 18, 2026. Now, while each of the aforementioned dates feel as if they're a part of some far-flung future, there's no telling how COVID-19 will affect the production and release of each project. My hope is that everything will be coming up Milhouse by then, but with things being as unpredictable as they are these days, there's always a chance that these projects could be pushed as well.