By TREVIN BRANDT
Staff Writer
Pixar Animation Studios officially announced on Thursday, October 8th 2020 that their next feature length animated film Soul will be pushed back until Christmas Day 2020 and will be available to stream exclusively on Disney+ for no additional cost. This comes not too long after the “Premiere Access” release of Disney’s live action take on Mulan which costs $29.99 in addition to having a subscription to Disney+. Soul was originally scheduled to be released on June 19th 2020 but was pushed back to November 20th 2020 due to theater shut downs. Now that we have reached the latter half of the year, and theaters are still closed around the country, Disney decided to solidify a release date outside of the theatrical window.
Earlier this year, Pixar took a major blow in the box office with their film Onward which released a mere week before Covid-19 took over the nation. The film barely grossed $100 million which is only two-thirds of its budget. It is unknown to many why Disney has decided to not attempt to make a profit on Soul considering its budget is rumored to be around $150 million. However it is quite overt why they would want to release it this year as opposed to next year.
Recently the Academy Awards changed their policy allowing films released before the end of February next year to compete in the awards. In addition, they are now allowing streaming debuts to compete. Considering Pixar’s track record and the lack of competition this year, it is speculated by many that Pixar’s diverse artistic film will win Best Animated Feature. This is backed up by the fact that Soul is a film about a black man attempting to find his purpose in life. With the Academy’s acceptance of diversity and the ongoing outcrys for racial justice this year, it would be very surprising to many if this film does not win the Oscar.