‘Top Gun Maverick’ postponed to December due to coronavirus
NEW YORK » Hollywood’s summer movie season is all but finished. “Top Gun Maverick” became the latest would-be blockbuster to be rescheduled due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Paramount Pictures announced that the sequel to the 1986 hit “Top Gun” will open Dec. 23 instead of June 24. “Top Gun Maverick,” starring Tom Cruise, follows an exodus of the big-budget spectacles that were supposed to arrive in theaters during the summer.
Most of the season’s top movies have departed the summer schedule. With the pandemic’s quickening spread, it remains uncertain when movie theaters will reopen or how much appetite moviegoers will have to visit cinemas when they initially open their doors.
Summer is typically Hollywood’s most lucrative time of year, when the studios unleash a barrage of sequels, superhero films and action movies. Last year, summer ticket sales accounted for $4.3 billion in U.S. and Canadian theaters.
“Ghostbusters: Afterlife,” “Wonder Woman 1984,” “Black Widow,” “Morbius” and “In the Heights” have all been delayed or taken off the schedule, along with major spring releases including “No Time to Die” and “Mulan.”
Some films have been postponed because of halted post-production, leading to reshuffling of next year’s schedule, too. Work on Universal Pictures’ “Minions: The Rise of Gru” was halted when the French animation studio Illumination had to close it doors. Universal said “Minions” will open in July 2021 instead of July 3 this year. “Sing 2” was pushed from July 2021 to December next year.
Paramount also said that “A Quiet Place Part II,” which had been scheduled to hit theaters in March, will instead be released Sept. 4.