This is another leap forward for the streaming world … and a nasty fall backward for movie theaters:
“Soul” (shown here), the new Pixar movie, won’t be in theaters after all, at least in the U.S. On Christmas Day, it will debut on Disney+; it will only reach theaters in parts of the world that don’t have the streaming service.
This is the third film to make that jump for Disney. It was “Hamilton” on the 4th of July, “Mulan” last month and now “Soul” for Christmas.
That amounts to a huge splash. The combined budgets for “Mulan” and “Soul” are listed at $350 million … a lot for films that show up mostly on small screens. The result has seen Disney+ soar beyond 60-million subscribers … and has seen theaters continue to wobble.
Like “Inside Out,” the new Pixar film visits our innards. A music teacher (Jamie Foxx) ends up in the land of new souls and tries to teach a new one (Tina Fey) about humanity.
And like “Coco,” it will go far beyond the old Disney boundaries of music and ethnicity. Jon Batiste performs the jazzy score, with Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross composing the score.