More Movies Could Move Directly To Disney+

A few days ago, Disney surprised moviegoers by announcing that Artemis Fowl, the new film directed by Kenneth Brannagh and starring Lara McDonnell, Josh Gad, Tamara Smart, Nonso Anozie, Josh McGuire, Nikesh Patel, Adrian Scarborough, Colin Farrell, and Judi Dench was moving directly to Disney+ instead of being delayed for release later in the year on the big screen. Now in a new interview with Barron’s, Bob Iger is talking about the decision to move some films to the streamer when they did, and what else could be heading its way.

In terms of the overall strategy, most flicks will not be skipping the theaters:

“In terms of movies going ahead after Artemis, there may be a few more that we end up putting directly onto Disney+, but for the most part a lot of the big tentpole Disney films, we’ll simply wait for slots. In some cases, we’ve announced new ones already, but later on in the calendar.”

Bob Iger

The soon to be former CEO went on to talk about what they’ve been doing about films that were released before the outbreak.

“In some cases we’ve moved things onto Disney+ faster than we would have. Frozen 2 was one of them, but Onward would be the biggest example. It was in theaters when this happened. We moved to a pay-per-view period for a couple of weeks where people could buy it and own it. And then we ended up putting it on Disney+.”

Bob Iger

In the interview, he also addressed some changes that might be coming to the Disney Theme Parks when they eventually re-open.

“We’re studying very carefully what China has been trying to do in terms of their return to normalcy. You can’t get on a bus or a subway or a train or enter a high-rise building. … without having your temperature taken.”

Bob Iger