Walt Disney executive chairman Bob Iger told Barron’s there may be a few movies after Artemis Fowl that jump directly onto Disney+ as the coronavirus pandemic keeps movie theaters shuttered.
“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,” Iger said in an interview with the publication.
Artemis Fowl was meant to be released in theaters. He didn’t name possible films that might follow. However, it’s been rumored for the longest time that New Mutatants, which was taken off the calendar when coronavirus hit, was going to Hulu.
Disney has delayed releases of Black Widow and Mulan.
“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+.”
Iger also said that Disney is considering taking people’s temperature at the theme park, kind of like it does bag checks, once the parks reopen.
We’re studying very carefully what China has been trying to do in terms of their return to normalcy,” he said, and a big part of that it there is that, “You can’t get on a bus or a subway or a train or enter a high-rise building. … without having your temperature taken.”
As parks and other revenue stalls he told Barron’s that Disney is lucky to have fo access to capital that will see it through a prolonged period. “Now when I say prolonged, I don’t necessarily mean forever. No one’s got that.” He said furloughs announced recently that started in the parks and will be cycling through other divisions were “necessary, not just in terms of reducing costs, but also sending a signal. Others obviously will feel the impact as well as we look to preserve the long-term health of the company financially.”