Friday brought the latest casualty to the COVID-19 pandemic, the complete Disney film schedule saw big delays. One film saw a bigger set back than the other films, the theme park ride-adaptation of Jungle Cruise.
Cruise was pushed back a full year. The film already saw a delay of a few months in order to meet the original theatrical release date of July 2020.
Immediately after the delay announcement, Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson took to Instagram to explain why the delay was so large. According to Johnson, the decision had to do with corporate synergy and public sentiment.
Basically the reasoning is that all of the Disney Theme Parks need to be back to business and the world needs to be in a better mental place after the events of the pandemic:
“We had some tremendous conversations with ourselves, Seven Bucks [Productions], [and] the Disney leadership team about making sure the parks are fully operational, that Disney cruise lines are fully operational, functional, sailing the oceans [and] delivering the joy to families all around the world as they love doing.
But more importantly than that […] it was very important that everyone had emotional confidence not only here in the [United States] but also around the world.
That emotional confidence allows us to get our kids back to school [and] feeling good about that, allows us to get back to work [and] feeling good about that, allows our Disney employees [and] our Disney team members to get back to work, too, and spread that joy and happiness as they love doing and are so proud to do.”
Jungle Cruise hits theaters on July 30, 2021. This is three full years after the film wrapped shooting.
