Disney has announced that its much-delayed live-action remake of "Mulan" will now be hitting its streaming service Disney Plus.
The film, starring Liu Yifei, will be available for the subscribers of the streamer for a premium rental price of USD 29.99, reported Variety.
Directed by Niki Caro, the adventure epic was previously scheduled to release on August 21, after being pushed from March to July in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.
Last month, the studio had decided to take the film off from its release calendar.
The decision to bypass cinemas and debut "Mulan" on Disney Plus deals a major blow to the theatre owners who were counting on playing both that film and Warner Bros' "Tenet" upon reopening later this month.
In a call with investors, Walt Disney Co. CEO Bob Chapek stressed that "Mulan" is a "one-off" case of a major film debuting on the streaming service.
"We're very pleased to be able to bring 'Mulan' to our consumer base that has been waiting for it for a long, long time as we've had to unfortunately move our theatrical date several times. We are looking at 'Mulan' as one-off as opposed to saying there is some new business windowing model that we are looking at," Chapek said.
"That said, we find it very interesting to be able to take a new offering to consumers at that USD 29.99 price and learn from it and see what happens not only in terms of the uptick of the number of subscribers we got on the platform, but also the number of transactions we get on that PVOD offering," he added.
