The giant of the film industry change their position on releasing their movie in theater and streaming simultaneously. For the rest of 2021, Disney will be releasing all of their movies in the theater. The decision is a boost to struggling entertainment venues, with major films during the pandemic debuting online at the same time as in theatres.

Among the films that will get a theatrical debut is Marvel’s Eternals. This decision could be directly related to the successful theatrical release of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings which killed at the box office standing at $127.6 million globally in its first weekend in cinemas.

The CEO of Disney said this regarding Shang-Chi: “an interesting experiment for us”
given how all earlier films had been released online simultaneously with cinemas since the start of the pandemic.

The amount of time before are released to streaming varies. For Shang-Chi it is being made available exclusively in cinemas for its first 45 days, before becoming watchable on the subscription Disney+ streaming platform. Eternals movie, directed by Oscar-winning director Chloe Zhao, will use the same release schedule, and will Steven Spielberg’s remake of West Side Story.

However, it changes for Animated musical Encanto which will only be in theaters for 30 days, starting around the Thanksgiving holiday in November, before moving to streaming.

It remains to be seen if other movie companies will follow Disney’s lead for theater releases.

The decision also comes after actress Scarlett Johansson sued Disney over their decision not to theatrically release Black Widow exclusively in cinemas. This case is still active.