Disney has just announced a new slate of movies that are set to release in the next few years, and one of them is breaking an 18-year streak and finally has the chance to restore a lost 1990s trend. Disney is one of the biggest companies in existence today, with it owning massive production studios like Walt Disney Animation Studios, Pixar, Lucasfilm, and Marvel Studios. Disney typically dominates the box office, but that doesn’t mean that it’s just able to release hits whenever it wants.
Because of this, Disney franchises often follow a pattern. MCU movies typically release in the late spring, summer, or around November. Star Wars typically drops its projects in December. Pixar usually drops summer releases, most often in June, while Walt Disney Animation Studios frequently releases its movies in November. All of these patterns are due to a variety of box office trends. However, one of them is about to change.
Disney Is Releasing An Animated Movie In The Summer After Years Of November Releases
Disney just announced several untitled projects that will be releasing over the coming years, but one of Walt Disney Animation Studios’ films has an interesting release date. The film currently slated for 2029 will release in June. This is really unusual for the studio, as they haven’t had a summer release date in 18 years.
For nearly two decades now, Walt Disney Animation Studios movies have been released in November. This is probably because Disney wants its big animated films to be in theaters when families are together for the holidays, as this is a big time for children’s animated movies. So, while there used to be more variety in the studio’s releases, the studio has almost exclusively released movies in November since 2012. The only exceptions to this are 2016’s Zootopia, which was released in the same year as the November 2016 release Moana, and 2021’s Raya and the Last Dragon, which was delayed from its November 2020 release date by the COVID-19 Pandemic before being released on Disney+.
The last Walt Disney Animation Studios movie to be released in the summer was 2011’s Winnie the Pooh, which had a July 15 release date. Even back then, however, this was unusual. From 2000 to 2010, seven of the studio’s 12 released hit theaters in either November or December. Only three films from this range came out in the summer, those being Dinosaur on May 19, 2000, Atlantis: The Lost Empire on June 15, 2001, and Lilo & Stitch on June 21, 2002. While the latter was a hit, Dinosaur and Atlantis both struggled at the box office, possibly explaining Disney’s switch to winter releases.
These June movies were the last breaths of the studio’s dominance at the summer box office during the Disney Renaissance. The successful November releases of The Little Mermaid, The Rescuers Down Under, Beauty & the Beast, and Aladdin gave Disney the confidence it needed to position its animated films as major summer blockbusters. So, starting in 1994, Disney switched its typical release window from November to June.
The Lion King, Pocahontas, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Hercules, Mulan, and Tarzan were all June releases, with 1999’s Fantasia 2000 breaking this streak with a December release. The cultural dominance of these iconic movies can be attributed to their successful summer releases, as they hit theaters at a time when kids were out of school. As Disney’s successes started to wane, the studio pivoted back to winter releases, putting us where we are today.
What A Successful Summer Release Could Mean For Walt Disney Animation Studios
Now that Disney is taking another big summer swing, a lot is riding on this film. Walt Disney Animation Studios films like Frozen II, Encanto, and Moana 2 have started to give cultural sway back to the company, meaning that Disney may be getting confident enough to try the summer once again. Much like how The Lion King started the summer release trend in the 1990s, if this film succeeds, it could cause Disney to move away from winter releases for a while.
Bringing Walt Disney Animation Studios to summer releases would be an interesting move, as it would test whether original animated movies can still hold up against massive franchise blockbusters. However, this could also lead the studio to rely more on franchises and recognizable IP in order to compete during this crowded box office period. Either way, it’s exciting to see that the 2029 film will have Disney return to something it hasn’t attempted since 2011.
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