VOIR, the latest Netflix series from Zodiac and Fight Club director David Fincher, will debut on December 6th. Described as a collection of visual essays celebrating cinema, the documentary series will see the likes of Tony Zhou and Taylor Ramos, best known for their work on Every Frame a Painting, tell personal stories about some of the most influential films in history.
VOIR, a series of visual essays celebrating Cinema and the personal connection we each have to the stories we see on the big screen.
From executive producers David Fincher and David Prior. Only on Netflix December 6. pic.twitter.com/RI6nV6lxYz
Even with Netflix sharing a trailer, it’s hard to say what exact movies will get the spotlight. At one point, nearly every famous film from the past seven decades makes an appearance in the clip, including more modern classics like The Matrix and Mad Max: Fury Road.
While some fans had hoped Fincher was working on a third season of Mindhunter, they’ll have to settle for VOIR instead. That’s not to say the auteur won’t return to the popular series. Last year, he extended his exclusive contract with Netflix by four years.
Having somehow made it through a second year of global pandemic and political unrest, give the loved ones on your holiday shopping list the greatest gift of all: an alternative to doom-scrolling. In Engadget’s 2021 Media Gift Guide you’ll find a diverse selection of books — fiction and nonfiction alike — as well a host of streaming content suggestions that will keep their recipients entertained through the holidays and beyond. If you’ve got a book, show or movie that you think would make the perfect present, tell us all about it in the comments below!
Fiction
Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse
Will Lipman Photography for Engadget
NYT bestselling author, Rebecca Roanhorse — the literary force behind Star Wars: Resistance Reborn — has done it again. Her latest fantasy series, Between Earth and Sky, takes readers on an epic journey of trauma, healing, vengeance, and eventual redemption. The first book in the series, 2020’s Black Sun, weaves a masterfully engrossing — and markedly inclusive — tale that eschews the common Arthurian Legend retellings in favor of a unique fantasy world inspired by pre-Columbian America cultures. If you’ve got a fan of fantasy on your holiday shopping list, pick up Black Sun for them before the sequel, Fevered Star, drops next April.
The ending of Game of Thrones was nothing short of a slap in the face to fans. I mean, really, all that and Bran wins? GTFOH. If you’ve got a fan of George “Double R” Martin on your holiday shopping list, do them a favor and turn them on to Joe Abercrombie’s Age of Madness trilogy. Set in a world in which the seeds of industrialization have just taken hold even as the age magic and mysticism stubbornly refuses to be uprooted, AoM tells a tale of mighty nations at war while the powerful elites who rule them vie for control over both their countries’ external fates and their courts’ internal politics. Packed with captivating characters, political intrigue, incredible reversals of fortune and stunning betrayals, Age of Madness is a grimdark masterpiece where everybody, for once, gets exactly what they deserve.
Whether we like it or not, this is Jeff Bezos’ world and the rest of us just live in it. Our current slate of 21st century techno-robber barons have achieved unfathomable wealth and unassailable power; but as Paul Bradley Carr’s latest novel, 1414º, illustrates, you can’t spend that money or wield that influence when you’re dead. If you’ve got a fan of high-tension whodunnits and techno-thrillers on your holiday shopping list, 1414º will be a surefire hit.
Fugitive Telemetry (The Murderbot Diaries) by Martha Wells
Will Lipman Photography for Engadget
Martha Wells can’t stop, won’t stop, dropping Murderbot hits. The reigning queen of hard sci-fi releasedFugitive Telemetry— the sixth book in her Hugo, Nebula, Locus and Alex Award winning series — earlier this year and let me tell you from experience, it is a banger. Our self-aware SecUnit anti-hero is back in another standalone adventure, this time on the trail of a vicious murderer aboard Preservation (space) Station. If the sci-finatic on your holiday shopping lists enjoys space intrigue and robotic mysteries, you can’t go wrong with Fugitive Telemetry.
The year is 2052 and Earth finds itself unwillingly annexed into a galactic empire it didn’t even know existed and is presented with a simple choice: provide our new alien overlords with a viable commercial product or face extermination. Thus, Earth’s mercenary legions are born. Armed with alien-made weaponry and a mysterious technology that allows soldiers to be reconstructed after being killed in battle — like reloading from a previous save point but far more gooey — Earth’s legions set out across the stars to fight the wars that the galaxy’s elder races are too self-important to fight themselves. Already 16 books deep, author B.V. Larson continues to lead the genre of military sci-fi from the front, so if you’ve got a fan of Starship Troopers, Aliens-style space marines, or Tom Cruise’s Edge of Tomorrow on your holiday shopping list, congrats! You can cross them off now.
Bright Galaxies, Dark Matter, and Beyond by Ashley Jean Yeager
Far from a household name, astronomer Vera Rubin’s pioneering research helped convince the scientific community of the possibility that dark matter — the mysterious materials that make up a vast majority of the universe but cannot be observed — actually exists. In Bright Galaxies, Dark Matter, and Beyond (not to be confused with Bright Galaxies, Dark Matter, a collection of Rubin’s own essays), author Ashley Jean Yeager takes readers on an inspiring biographical journey through the astronomer’s early year before examining the challenges she faced working in an often hostile, male-dominated field, and her eventual vindication and professional triumphs — looking at you Vera C. Rubin Observatory. If you’ve got a younger someone on your holiday shopping list who’s interested in pursuing STEM, this could well be the book that puts them on a path towards scientific greatness.
During the Zeppelin’s heyday, airships weren't just a means of the well-to-do to slowly get to distant destinations in comfort and luxury, they also offered a new means of (albeit pokey) exploration. N-4 Down by Mark Piesing takes readers on a thrilling, nail-biting adventure of the largest arctic rescue operation in history as famed Norwegian explorer, Roald Amundsen, rushed to save the surviving crew of the airship Italia, which crashed during its attempt to land men at the North Pole in 1928. The history and aeronautical buffs on your holiday shopping list are going to absolutely love it.
For the last 10,000 years, humanity has had an unprecedented and largely destructive impact on the environment around us. But as climate change increasingly wreaks its own havoc on us in return, humanity must now work to reverse or at least mitigate the harm that we have caused. In Under a White Sky: The Nature of the Future, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Elizabeth Kolbert examines just what we can do to make things right with Mother Earth and avoid a catastrophic climate crisis.
Green Bank, West Virginia is, technologically speaking, stuck in the 1950s. And for good reason! This bucolic Appalachian town is home to the ultra-sensitive radio telescope at the Green Bank observatory, which necessitates that basically every device that can emit a radio signal — everything from iPads to microwaves — be heavily restricted. In The Quiet Zone, journalist and author Stephen Kurczy, embeds himself in Green Bank to give readers a firsthand look at what life could be like without our precious digital tech. The Quiet Zone is the perfect gift for the aspiring luddite on your holiday shopping list.
Given the myriad COVID-induced supply chain challenges that retailers are girding for this upcoming holiday season, finding physical copies of these titles could prove to be a bit of a challenge. So, perhaps consider gifting the book worms on your holiday shopping list the Kindle Paperwhite and a subscription to Amazon Kindle Unlimited? Virtually every one of the books listed above are available on the digital service along with millions of others as well as magazines and periodicals.
But there’s only so much one can read during those long winter nights so why not curl up on the couch with a nice cup of hot cocoa and watch some sterling examples of our new Golden Age of Television? If you’ve got a Trekkie on your holiday shopping list, you really can’t go wrong with a subscription to Paramount+. The $5 - $10 a month service unlocks a plethora of Star Trek shows including the Emmy award-winning Picard and the hilarious Lower Decks.
Got someone with small children on your gift list? Throw them a bone with a Disney+ subscription. The service hosts nearly the entirety of Disney’s massive, decades-deep archives along with new family-friendly series and episodes arriving daily.
Marvel's superheroes are about to get a bit bigger on your TV. Disney+ announced today that it's adding an expanded IMAX aspect ratio for 13 Marvel titles, including Shang-Chi and Black Panther, on November 12th (AKA "Disney+ Day"). The 1.90:1 IMAX aspect ratio will look up to 26 percent taller than the typical 2.35:1 widescreen format in Marvel films, so those annoying black bars will almost disappear while you're watching scenes shot in IMAX. (You'll still see some slight bars, though, as the IMAX format doesn't completely fill 16x9 widescreen TVs.)
Disney
Before this Disney+ partnership, IMAX and DTS brought the "IMAX Enhanced" home viewing format to a handful of TV streaming apps, like Sony's Bravia Core. IMAX-ified films will have a prominent label on their Disney+ screens, and you'll also be able to launch the standard widescreen version if you prefer. Physical Blu-ray collectors are already used to shifting IMAX aspect ratios in some films, most notably The Dark Knight, Tenet and Mission Impossible: Fallout, but streaming films have typically lost on this perk.
The expanded aspect ratio should give Marvel's action sequences more room to pop on your TV, and it's a feature Disney+ can lord over its streaming competitors. Technically, IMAX Enhanced isn't delivering the large film format's true aspect ratio, which is more square. But, as we saw with Zack Snyder's Justice League, that leads to enormous black bars on the sides of your TV. It's also worth noting that we won't see IMAX versions of The Avengers and Ant-Man, as those are the rare Marvel films that used the TV-filling 1.85:1 aspect ratio (a choice made to convey a better sense of height).
Looking ahead, IMAX Enhanced will also bring immersive DTS sound to Disney+, a competing option to the more ubiquitous Dolby Atmos format. Representatives from all of the companies involved tell us that IMAX Enhanced films will also support Dolby Vision, HDR10, 4K (naturally) and Dolby Atmos sound.
Marvel's superheroes are about to get a bit bigger on your TV. Disney+ announced today that it's adding an expanded IMAX aspect ratio for 13 Marvel titles, including Shang-Chi and Black Panther, on November 12th (AKA "Disney+ Day"). The 1.90:1 IMAX aspect ratio will look up to 26 percent taller than the typical 2.35:1 widescreen format in Marvel films, so those annoying black bars will almost disappear while you're watching scenes shot in IMAX. (You'll still see some slight bars, though, as the IMAX format doesn't completely fill 16x9 widescreen TVs.)
Disney
Before this Disney+ partnership, IMAX and DTS brought the "IMAX Enhanced" home viewing format to a handful of TV streaming apps, like Sony's Bravia Core. IMAX-ified films will have a prominent label on their Disney+ screens, and you'll also be able to launch the standard widescreen version if you prefer. Physical Blu-ray collectors are already used to shifting IMAX aspect ratios in some films, most notably The Dark Knight, Tenet and Mission Impossible: Fallout, but streaming films have typically lost on this perk.
The expanded aspect ratio should give Marvel's action sequences more room to pop on your TV, and it's a feature Disney+ can lord over its streaming competitors. Technically, IMAX Enhanced isn't delivering the large film format's true aspect ratio, which is more square. But, as we saw with Zack Snyder's Justice League, that leads to enormous black bars on the sides of your TV. It's also worth noting that we won't see IMAX versions of The Avengers and Ant-Man, as those are the rare Marvel films that used the TV-filling 1.85:1 aspect ratio (a choice made to convey a better sense of height).
Looking ahead, IMAX Enhanced will also bring immersive DTS sound to Disney+, a competing option to the more ubiquitous Dolby Atmos format. Representatives from all of the companies involved tell us that IMAX Enhanced films will also support Dolby Vision, HDR10, 4K (naturally) and Dolby Atmos sound.
Here are all the IMAX Enhanced films arriving on Disney+ on November 12th:
Dune is a film filled with gorgeous vistas from alien planets; skyscraper-sized spaceships; and some of the most beautiful actors working today. It's a joy to watch, especially on the big screen. But there's also an undersung element that ties everything together: sound design. It practically breathes life to the film — so much so that it makes Dune's wing-flapping ornithopter ships seem surprisingly real. The key to that magic, according to sound designers Theo Green and Mark Mangini, was a focus on capturing and using organic sounds, rather than fantastical digital creations.
Working together with Dune's director, Denis Villeneuve, the pair aimed to make "a real-sounding science-fiction film with things we've clearly never seen and heard before," Mangini said in an interview with Engadget."[It was] almost as if you put out a microphone and captured sounds as if those things actually existed. Everything we did ... is an outgrowth of that overarching philosophy to design a soundtrack for two hours and forty minutes that felt organic, as if we were [making] a documentary film."
That philosophy was essential to crafting the Bene Gesserit voice, a seemingly supernatural ability that allows members of Dune's religious order to control others. Think of it like the Jedi mind trick (Star Wars owes an absolute ton to Dune, don't forget). But instead of a hypnotic wave of the hand, the sound of Dune's voice is like a simultaneous kick to the gut and punch to the face. If you were somehow dozing off while the film's hero, Paul Atreides (Timothee Chalamet), tests his budding Bene Gesserit powers, you'd be easily jolted awake.
To make that otherworldly voice a reality, Green credits three elements. There's the voice actor Jean Gilpin, who he says is “brilliant” at crafting witchy and ancestral voices. The sound designers also recorded Dune's actors saying their lines several different ways, which they played back through a subwoofer and recorded the final output. That's an age-old technique known as "worldizing," or the act of recording audio that's being played back through speakers in a physical space.
Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures
The final component of the voice is the simplest: whenever a character starts to use that technique, the other sounds in the world fade away. In that early scene with Paul Atreides, we go from hearing the sounds of birds in the morning and a far-off thunderstorm to silence. That's an innately eerie effect that draws us into the interior world of the Bene Gesserit's powers: As Frank Herbert described it, they're calling on their ancestors and using advanced psychological techniques to manipulate others.
Green and Mangini went similarly old-school when designing the sound of Dune's ornithopter ships. They're the equivalent of helicopters in the film's universe, but they sound more like gigantic insects. To achieve that, Mangini says they combined the sounds of a large purring cat, a tent-strap flapping in high-velocity wind, and the fluttering wings of a large beetle. They weren't working from pre-existing sound libraries, either. Green had to bring a beetle into a quiet room and somehow get a decent recording.
Warner Bros.
All of that was just for the sounds of the ornithopters’ wings. To craft their propulsion system, the duo took recordings of beehives and modulated them to sound like RPMs revving up in a car's engine. The shifting of the ship's wings also came from an unlikely source: Mangini's Chevy Volt.
Once their work on Dune was over, the sound designers counted 3,200 new sounds that they developed for the film. Only three or four of them started out as electronic or synthetic sounds, Mangini says. That hearkens back to the way Villeneuve has approached visual effects in Dune and his earlier genre films: Go real whenever possible. For the sound designers, that push for authenticity also led to some inventive techniques. The gaping maw of Dune's enormous sandworms, for example, started out as the sound of Mangini half-swallowing a microphone.
Warner Bros.
Green likens the use of organic sounds as a way to avoid the "uncanny valley" that plagues some visual effects. Our eyes know when certain things look fake, and that takes us out of the reality of the film. "I think [the uncanny valley] is in sound," he said. "It's those tiny complexities and tiny nuances that you only get from an organically sourced thing that sells something as being real."
With four movies under its belt, the Toy Story franchise remains the undeniable crown jewel in Pixar's portfolio. But after Toy Story 4 put something of a boy on Woody's story, the focus is now shifting to Buzz Lightyear. The first trailer for Lightyear just arrived, and it sure paints a different picture than what we're used to in the Toy Story universe. For one, the titular character isn't a toy, but a real flesh-and-blood human who appears to be the inspiration for the Buzz Lightyear figure we know so well.
The trailer definitely gives off origin story vibes, as it looks like Buzz makes the journey from pilot to intergalactic explorer in his signature spacesuit. How he gets from there to a beloved toy in the Toy Story world remains to be seen — but since this is Pixar, we're expecting the two stories to collide in a way that's fairly unexpected.
Lightyear is set to hit theaters on June 17th, 2022, with Chris Evans voicing Buzz for the first time. Unfortunately for those of us who have gotten used to watching new Pixar films on Disney+, it seems like you'll have to head out into the world if you want to see this during that summer release window.
It didn't take long to greenlight a follow-up to Denis Villeneuve's Dune. Legendary Pictures has confirmed plans to release Dune: Part Two, saying it was "excited to the continue the journey." The studio expects the movie to premiere October 20th, 2023, and it's safe to presume Part Two will cover the back half of Frank Herbert's classic novel.
The move isn't shocking. Villeneuve clearly wanted to finish telling Paul Atreides' story, but the movie also fared better than expected. Deadlinenoted that Dune racked up $41 million at the domestic box office during its opening weekend. That's not as strong as movies like Shang-Chi ($71.4 million) and a far cry from pre-pandemic openings, but it's the best opening for a Warner Bros. movie with simultaneous theatrical and HBO Max releases this year.
It's not yet clear how much the HBO Max launch helped (or hindered) Dune's theatrical premiere. However, Villeneuve won't have to worry about a simultaneous streaming release for Part Two. Warner Bros. is returning to theater-first openings starting in 2022. Like it or not, you'll have to brave the crowds and buy tickets if you insist on watching the follow-up as soon as possible.
This is only the beginning...
Thank you to those who have experienced @dunemovie so far, and those who are going in the days and weeks ahead. We're excited to continue the journey! pic.twitter.com/mZj68Hnm0A
The real world just felt too small when I stepped out of Denis Villeneuve's Dune. There weren't any enormous spaceships ready to rocket off to planets in distant galaxies. No Brutalist palaces amid endless desert vistas. No building-sized sandworms roaming about, eager to devour anyone who disturbed them. Just me and traffic on Atlanta's I-285.
This latest Dune adaptation isn't perfect — it's at times emotionally empty, and it's basically set up for a second movie we may never see — but it successfully transported me to the universe Frank Herbert created over half a century ago. The film focuses on half of the novel, telling the story of Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet), a sheltered baron's son who moves to the desert planet of Arrakis. It's an important post, since it's the only world that produces the melange, or spice, which powers interstellar travel. But as Paul quickly learns, it's also a dangerous place for his elite family, and it's where he learns he may also be a potential messiah. You know, typical teen boy stuff.
Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures
After being wowed by Dune in the theater, I plan to rewatch it at home on HBO Max, where it's also being released today. But I'm certain the experience won't be the same, even on my 120-inch projector screen. This Dune demands to be seen on something even bigger—a place where your very sense of being can be dwarfed. Dune made me feel like Paul Atreides standing in front of a skyscraper-sized sandworm, waiting to be consumed. And I welcomed it.
Of course, it's no simple thing to trek out to the cinema these days, not with coronavirus still raging and fellow theatergoers refusing to take basic safety precautions. (The vaccines are safe. Masks work. Please protect yourself and others.) But if you can manage to safely see it in theaters — perhaps by renting out a private screen with friends — you'll be reminded of what makes that experience so special. I watched it in the second row of a fairly typical multiplex theater, and it still floored me. I can only imagine what it would be like on a full-sized IMAX screen, which can reach up to 98 feet tall.
Dune is at its best when Villeneuve and cinematographer Greig Fraser let you soak in the vistas, the regal-yet-alien costumes and the wealth of background details. It's pure visual world-building. At one point, a character's eyes briefly flash white when he's asked to compute the cost of an imperial envoy's trek through the stars. It's never explained, but you get it. This style of slow burn sci-fi isn't for everyone, but if you enjoyed Arrival or Blade Runner 2049, Villeneuve's previous genre forays, there's a good chance you're primed for this brand of storytelling.
Even before I saw anything on the screen, though, I felt Dune in my gut. As I waited for my screening to begin, an alien voice began speaking out of nowhere, sounding like it came entirely from the theater's subwoofers. It posed a question about the power of drums, but really, it was as if the movie was saying, "Sit up, pay attention, you're not on Earth anymore."
The film's inventive sound design doesn't stop there. Everything you hear — from the roar of spaceships as they take off, the buzz of dragonfly-like vehicles as they flap their wings, or the sphincter-clenching roar of the sandworms — is meticulously crafted to make you believe it's all real. Hans Zimmer's score doesn't tread too far from his Gladiator vibe, but does a fine job of making everything sound epic. (And yes, I was blasting it down the highway as I sped back home.)
Don't take my praise for this movie as disrespect towards David Lynch's 1984 Dune. That was a troubled production that's since attained cult status, but it was hampered by meddling producers and a script that tried to cram in the entire novel. Villenueve's approach is more confident and, as you'd expect, is backed by far more capable visual effects technology. Even though it runs for two hours and 35 minutes, I could have easily given up another three hours to watch the rest of the story.
Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures
Unfortunately, there's a chance we won't see that conclusion. Warner Bros. originally agreed to let Villeneuve tell the story in two parts (this movie's title card says "Dune Part 1"), but the follow-up still hasn't been officially greenlit. The director told Variety that his plan to shoot both parts at once was denied—he expects to hear more from the studio once we see how Dune performs in theaters and on HBO Max. Plans for a prequel TV series, Dune: The Sisterhood, are still in the works with Villeneuve attached to produce.
As epic as Dune is, it's a shame that its scope couldn't fit in actors from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), cultures that Herbert was clearly inspired by. The film almost goes out of its way to diminish any Islamic influence from its story (instead of Jihad, there are references to a crusade). That's particularly egregious when we see the locals of Arrakis, the blue-eyed sand dwellers known as the Fremen, who are often portrayed as noble savages. At least the film begins with the Fremen perspective: Chani, played by Zendaya, wonders aloud who their next oppressors will be.
All of this is to say, if you can make it to the theater to see Dune, you should. You can still capture some of its immensity by watching it up close: Pull a chair right up to your TV, or veg out with a laptop as close to your eyeballs as possible. But Dune is a story that hinges on the power of dreams, so it’s almost fitting that it’s best experienced when it overwhelms your reality.
Even though Holland plays a much younger version of the character (which Mark Wahlberg's Sully jokes about in the opening moments) than in the games, the enjoyable-enough trailer incudes some of the most memorable moments from Drake's globe-trotting adventures. There isn't a bit where he clambers up a train carriage that's dangling over a cliff, but there's the cargo plane set piece from Uncharted 3 and a ship trapped inside a cave, just like in Uncharted 4. The clip includes some underground exploration too.
The film's set to arrive in theaters on February 11th, following several delays. Attempts to make an Uncharted movie stopped and started over the years, with directors including David O. Russell, Seth Gordon and Shawn Levy being attached at certain points before Zombieland and Venom helmer Ruben Fleischer saw the film through. The project had been in development for so long that, for a while, Wahlberg looked set to play Drake, rather than the character's mentor.
Some viewers might be coming to the franchise with fresh eyes (maybe because they need more Tom Holland in their lives), and they might want to play the games to see what all the fuss is about. Sony Pictures included a handy reminder at the end of the trailer about a remastered bundle of Uncharted 4 and Uncharted: The Lost Legacy that's coming to PlayStation 5 and PC in early 2022.
In case the trailer doesn't quite match up to what you might have expected, or Holland doesn't seem like the right person for the gig in your opinion, it's worth checking out this short fan film from a few years back in which Nathan Fillion plays the rogueish treasure hunter. It's a blast.
Disney has shaken up its movie release calendar, with several Marvel Cinematic Universe flicks being delayed. The revamped schedule, which Varietyreports is due to a production-related snowball effect, affects the slate for 2022 and beyond, and it will have a knock-on effect on Disney+.
All of the MCU films Disney had on the docket for 2022 have been pushed to a later slot. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness was penciled in for March 25th, but now it's taking Thor: Love and Thunder's old date of May 6th. The next Thor movie will arrive on July 8th, in turn pushing back Black Panther: Wakanda Forever to November 11th.
The schedule shifts mean there will only be three Marvel movies next year instead of the planned four, as Captain Marvel sequel The Marvels now has a release date of February 17th, 2023. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania has moved from that date to July 28th, 2023. On the flip side, Disney brought one mystery Marvel movie (hopefully Guardians of the Galaxy 3) forward by a week from November 10th, 2023.
Elsewhere, the next Indiana Jones movie has been delayed by 11 months. You'll need to wait until June 30th, 2023 for Harrison Ford's fifth stint as the iconic archeologist. Ford sustained an injury while filming this summer, though he's now back in action. A live-action Disney movie, a 20th Century film and two Marvel flicks (all untitled) have been removed from the 2023 schedule.
Remarkably, given how many times the film has been delayed over the years, Disney hasn't shifted Avatar 2's release date. It's still on the schedule for December 16th, 2022.
It remains to be seen what impact these changes will have on Disney+. For the rest of 2021, Disney has committed to an exclusive theatrical window for its films before they're available to stream, but it hasn't divulged how things will work in 2022 and beyond.
The company adopted a simultaneous release strategy for some of its movies over the last year or so amid the COVID-19 pandemic, with Mulan, Raya and the Last Dragon, Cruella and Black Widow requiring a $30 Premier Access pass for early access on Disney+. Disney's decision to let viewers stream Black Widow at home on the same day it hit theaters prompted a now-settled lawsuit from star Scarlett Johansson. Pixar movies Souland Lucawent straight to streaming as part of regular Disney+ subscriptions in some countries.
Elsewhere, some MCU shows on Disney+, such as Lokiand Hawkeye, tie into the theatrical movies. As such, the scheduling of future series might be impacted by the overhauled theatrical slate.
