Last week, Illumination/Universal’s Minions: The Rise Of Gru stepped off of its global release which was previously set for late June in some offshore markets and for July 3 domestically. It has now been scheduled for July 2, 2021, taking the slot that belonged to Sing 2, which in turn is now headed to Christmas 2021 (December 22 domestically). Universal has thus pushed Wicked off of its holiday 2021 launch. That film remains undated for the moment.
These are further casualties of the coronavirus pandemic as Illumination’s Mac Guff studio in Paris has been temporarily shuttered in abidance with the current lockdown in France — and as Hollywood jockeys its schedules for the foreseeable, yet unclear, future.
Already this year, Universal has shifted the offshore release of James Bond pic No Time To Die and driven its release of F9 to Easter weekend April 2, 2021. Sony, yesterday shuffled a lot of titles.No studio is immune.
As for Gru, in 2017, the series of Illumination Despicable Me movies all told became the top grossing animated film franchise ever worldwide. Sing, released in 2016, made over $634M global.
The Wicked movie, meanwhile,is based on the three-time Tony Award-winning musical and directed by Stephen Daldry.
We knew 2020 wasn’t poised to be any where near as big as 2019 in terms of grosses. It was due to be a transition year. No one ever thought it was going to be quite as harsh as this.