This morning Disney announced a whole new slate for their movies following the effects of the coronavirus pandemic. The entire MCU has been shifted forward, and many other Disney movies such as Mulan and Jungle Cruise received new dates. But one movie didn’t: The New Mutants.

People are obviously wanting it to go straight to streaming like Hulu or Disney+, but there’s a huge obstacle in the way of that in the US, which is HBO.

Eight years ago, 20th Century Fox and HBO struck a long-term deal for their movies to stream exclusively on HBO in the US until 2022. There are still two years to go on the deal, and that’s why Dark Phoenix debuted on HBO last month as opposed to going to Disney+.

The deal does not affect selling digital movies, so Disney could in theory release The New Mutants on premium VOD and sell it on stores like iTunes, Vudu, and Amazon. But then when the streaming time comes, it’ll be streaming on HBO (meaning HBO Max in the US) who is quickly becoming a direct competitor to Disney+. The HBO deal also doesn’t permit digital rentals on those services, which is why you can’t rent Dark Phoenix on iTunes.

This means that Disney can either wait and find a theatrical release date, and just bite the bullet and put it out for sale on digital and then let it stream on HBO until the deal expires in 2022.

About Author Jeremy Conrad https://mcucosmic.com/ Jeremy has been active on the web since the 90s. He once ran IGN DVD as well as other sites, and worked in the video game industry on Star Wars Galaxies. When he’s not pursing the future of Marvel movies, he’s really into tech. See author's posts