Reminding us that, sometimes, even a guy like Tom Hanks is just a puppet dangling on entertainment giant strings, Variety reports that Hanks’ upcoming Pinocchio movie, directed by Robert Zemeckis, will go the way of Artemis Fowl and Mulan and skip theaters in favor of Disney+. It won’t be alone, either; per Variety, it’ll be joined by the Yara Shahidi-and-Jude-Law starring Peter Pan And Wendy, plus Raya And The Last Dragon, which will get simultaneous openings both on the streaming service, and in theaters.
It’s hard not to see these moves—which were rolled out as part of Disney’s “Welp, here’s everything, ever” investors call today—as a reaction to Warner Bros.’ recent plans to do similar hybrid releases for pretty much everything on its 2021 schedule. Of course, Disney is still being a little more conservative here; none of the films in question were necessarily going to move mountains, box office-wise, while the decision to paywall Raya beyond a $30 premium fee the same way it did Mulan suggests increased confidence on Disney’s part there. And the company is still holding back on similarly transferring over MCU movie Black Widow, which would really feel like a major concession to COVIDworld.
Pinocchio stars Hanks as Gepetto, working with his old Forrest Gump and Polar Express pal Zemeckis. Hanks reportedly signed on to star in the film back in August; there’s still no word on who’ll be playing his precocious wooden child.
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It’s hard not to see these moves—which were rolled out as part of
Disney’s “Welp, here’s everything, ever” investors call today—as a
reaction to Warner Bros.’ recent plans to do similar hybrid releases for pretty much everything on its 2021 schedule.
Hasn’t this been Disney’s regular MO for years now, upstaging WB a few days after they release a trailer or any sort of big news with something flashier of their own? It feels like they’ve done it dozens of times, but I can’t really remember anything specific, so it might have just been like one particularly well-timed Endgame trailer or something.
When Star Wars and Batman v Superman were both in production it almost seemed like a gag, oh you guys have a press release/image/trailer? Well look at this even SHINIER and more finished image/trailer we have!
How do they get Tom Hanks into a PINOCCHIO film and *not* cross it over with Woody from TOY STORY?
There will definitely be nods to Woody in there. Perhaps Pinocchio will get a snake in his boot and it will cut to Gepetto looking straight into the camera and winking. In the theaters, half the audience is nearly finished fastening their nooses while the other half dangles from the rafters.
And it’ll still make a billion dollars or something.
Oh yeah. Nothing screams must see nostalgia like “that boring shit my great Grandpa saw in middle school.”
And I’ll be skipping that for, oh I don’t know, watching Lavern and Shirley instead.
I feel like the more news there is released at once, the less hype any of it gets. Most of the new announcements feel like they’re flying completely under the radar, even if they would have been big news on their own.
Yay! More nails in theater coffins! I couldn’t be more pleased.
So this one is different from the Roberto Benigni Pinocchio I’ve been seeing ads for? Which is different from the Roberto Benigni Pinocchio that I seem to remember coming out like, twenty years ago?I’m so tired.