More new movies will be heading to Disney+ as cinemas remain shuttered

Disney boss Bob Iger has said that more new movies intended for cinemas could be heading for its new streaming platform as theatres remain closed in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

The studio recently announced that its long-in-gestation Artemis Fowl movie, based on Eoin Colfer best-selling YA fantasy, was having its theatrical release cancelled, instead premiering on Disney+.

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Now Iger has said that other movies in the pipeline could be shunted to the new platform too.

“There are some (movies) we’ve decided to put on Disney Plus,” he told Barron's.

“In some cases we’ve moved things onto Disney Plus faster than we would have.

“In terms of movies going ahead after Artemis [Fowl], there may be a few more that we end up putting directly onto Disney Plus, but for the most part a lot of the big tentpole Disney films, we’ll simply wait for slots.”

So far, those movies that Disney has sent to home viewing sooner than planned include Frozen 2 and Pixar's Onward.

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It's now being speculated that Pixar's forthcoming jazz-themed movie Soul, featuring the voices of Jamie Foxx, Tina Fey, Questlove, Phylicia Rashad, Daveed Diggs and Angela Bassett, could be among the movies heading to streaming.

Read more: Frozen 2 scores huge home release

Ditto The New Mutants, the X-Men spin-off which came to Disney via its acquisition of the Fox studio, is also currently without a rescheduled release date.