Anna Daniels
As the stay at home orders extend further, more and more studios have been postponing their film releases. The latest move was Warner Bros.’s Wonder Woman 1984 from June to August of this year. Sony didn’t have a release on its calendar until June’s Greyhound, with its franchise entries – Ghostbusters: Afterlife and it’s Marvel spinoff Morbius – in July. On March 30, Exhibitor Relations reported that Sony moved their entire summer slate to 2021.
There’s precedent now for June movies moving but end of March may seem a bit early to pull July and August releases. However, consider that the leadup to films like Ghostbusters and Morbius requires months of marketing rollout. Waiting even until the end of April could cost Sony millions in aborted advertising, so they’re playing it safe, and the movies will still be there next year. Find out when you can see Sony’s movies below.
Marvel’s ‘Morbius’ goes the way of ‘Black Widow’
The Marvel Cinematic Universe under Disney postponed the May release of Blak Widow and has not announced a new date yet. Sony’s Marvel titles are a bit more standalone, although they are connected through Tom Holland’s Spider-Man. Morbius was going to be the origin story of Dr. Michael Morbius (Jared Leto) whose experiments to cure his rare disease end up giving him vampiric super powers.
There have been rumblings of a Morbius team-up with Spider-Man or Venom, even eventually the new Blade. The Morbius trailer features Michael Keaton’s Adrian Toomes from Spider-Man: Homecoming. They’ve got to release Morbius first though, and Sony now slates it for March 19, 2021.
‘Ghostbusters: Afterlife’ will still have a two week lead on ‘Morbius’
Ghostbusters: Afterlife was scheduled for a July 10 summer slot. All three past Ghostbusters films were summer movies. After the controversial 2016 remake, director Jason Reitman promised Afterlife would tie directly into the first two films. The trailer shows a family (Carrie Coon, McKenna Grace and Finn Wolfhard) moving to a small town where the daughter discovers the Ghostbusters uniforms.
The trailers for Ghostbusters: Afterlife raised many questions, like is this Spengler (Harold Ramis)’s widow and children? Is the new film super serious? We’re going to have to wait until March 5, 2021 to find out. This date closes the three week gap the film had with Morbius in July.
‘Peter Rabbit 2’ bounces to January
The live-action (with computer animated bunnies) Peter Rabbit adaptation was a solid hit for Sony. The film’s biggest claim to fame may have been a controversy over the rabbits exploiting a food allergy for comedy, when such allergies can be deadly in real life. Nevertheless, Sony had a sequel ready to open Aug. 7 just before kids go back to school.
Now Peter Rabbit 2 won’t come out until Jan. 7, 2021. That will likely be after most kids’ Christmas break, but it’ll give them a treat to look forward to their first weekend back from school. That also moves it from after Ghostbusters and Morbius to before both.
‘Greyhound’ has no destination
Tom Hanks had another World War II movie set for this summer. Where Saving Private Ryan had Hanks lead troops on the beach on D Day, Greyhound would see Hanks captain a Naval convoy.
Sony has not announced a new date for Greyhound yet. Since this had the potential to be not only a crowd pleaser, but an Awards contender, they may still be scouting out a possible holiday season release.
Written by: Cheat
