Last week, Illumination‘s studio in Paris temporarily closed due to the coronavirus pandemic, resulting in the upcoming Minions sequel Minions: The Rise of Gru to move off global summer release dates. On Wednesday, both Illumination and Universal has decided on a new release date for the animated picture: July 2, 2021, exactly a year after it was originally set to hit the big screen. Before the pandemic, it was previously set for late June to July 3 domestically.
Musically driven animated sequel Sing 2 is now anticipated to be released near the holidays on December 22, 2021 domestically. It was originally set to open on July 2, 2021 before the Minions sequel took over that date.
Consequently, Universal has pushed the three-time Tony Award-winning based musical film adaptation Wicked off of its 2021 holiday launch. No dates have been attached for the musical. No major studios are immune to this, almost of them releasing via digital VOD or pulling back release and production dates, including the highly anticipated James Bond sequel No Time To Die, among countless of others.
In 2017, Illumination’s Despicable Me movies were amongst the top grossing animated film franchises ever worldwide. Sing, released in 2016, made over $634M global. With cinemas across the nation closing and the pandemic growing as time slowly but surely approaches summer 2020, this will cause an unprecedented, dramatic drop in box offices and an overall greater toll on the animated film industry.
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