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Studios Play Wait-and-See While Will Ferrell Wins the Weekend

We were this close.

It looked like the movie business was just a month away from returning to some semblance of normalcy. Disney’s live-action Mulan was set to crack open the delayed summer season July 24. Christopher Nolan’s Tenet was set to premiere July 31. Theaters were warming up their popcorn poppers in gleeful anticipation.

But it looks like we’ll have a little longer to wait.

With the coronavirus surging in several states, a wave of tentpole pics have again been delayed, leaving the July cinematic schedule pretty empty. Tenet is now “tenetively” scheduled to open Aug. 12. We won’t be seeing Mulan until Aug. 21. Bill & Ted Face the Music, which had been set for Aug. 14, will now play two weeks later on Aug. 28.

Even Russell Crowe’s thriller Unhinged unhinged itself from its original July 10 release date. It’s now set for July 31.

About the only wide-release film that’s still scheduled to, well, release wide and on time is The Broken Hearts Gallery, which is slated to debut July 17. (Which, it must be said, is still a week later than its own original release date.)

Still, people gotta watch something. And if Netflix’s word can be believed, lots of us were watching Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga.

The Will Ferrell comedy is now the No. 1 film on that ubiquitous streaming platform, with Forbes calling it “the closest thing Will Ferrell’s had to an all-around hit since The LEGO Movie in 2014.” Netflix hasn’t released viewership figures for Eurovision yet, but the PG-13 film was clearly a big deal.

Meanwhile, over on the video-on-demand rental charts, the Jon Stewart/Steve Carell political comedy Irresistible performed well, too, despite middling reviews. The flick is No. 1 on FandangoNow’s VOD chart (followed by The King of Staten Island and You Should Have Left, respectively), and No. 2 on iTunes (behind the ever-durable Trolls World Tour).

As for traditional theatrical releases, well … not much to report there. According to Box Office Mojo, the only movie to register even a blip was Followed, scratching out $53,401 from 41 theaters.

Obviously, the movie business has changed greatly this season, and it will continue to be a weird beast to get a handle on. But Plugged In remains committed to covering all the movies you and your family might be interested in seeing—no matter what platform/venue you might be seeing them on. Keep checking back in for updates on everything your family needs to be aware of in the entertainment world, because we’re doing our dead level best to keep track of it.