Let’s dispense with the useless bragging up top: I have a couple times during the pandemic tweeted about whether or not Disney would expedite the live production of Hamilton featuring the original cast, from its original theatrical release date of the fall of 2021, to something…before then. And then, this morning, they just tweeted it out.
I continue to maintain that Hamilton is a very odd beast indeed. The original cast hasn’t been together for years, so this version of the show has existed for a few years, just hanging out there. Lin-Manuel Miranda talked about its filming years ago. It was only being held through the fall of 2021 for a wider audience because the stage show rakes in the dough both on Broadway and on tour. But the pandemic’s continuation has made it so the show has gone dark across the country. (As I mentioned this morning on Twitter, the tour is stopping in Phoenix this fall, but I kinda doubt it’s actually going to be there anymore.)
I also maintain that Hamilton is a strange title to be on Disney+. It’s got some profanity — looking forward to hearing the word “motherfucking” on Disney+! — and also, its lead character actively cuckolds a random dude in the second act, and then pays for the pleasure of sleeping with that man’s wife. I love this show. Love it! It is not appropriate for Disney+. But that’s a bridge we’ll be crossing in July.
Anyway, it’s funny, because I’d already been planning to write something today about the vast unknowability of what the hell is going on in the world in relationship to the Walt Disney Company today. Yesterday, Bob Chapek acted like a CEO of a major company, and did an interview with CNBC. Most of the discussion hinged on the reopening of Shanghai Disneyland, but he also noted that the new Mulan release date of July 24 is definitely staying put.
We are roughly ten weeks out from that new release date. Let’s go back to March 27. That was the original release date of Mulan. Ten weeks before then, there were no confirmed cases of the coronavirus in the United States. Ten weeks before then, Robert Iger was the CEO of the Walt Disney Company. And hey, ten weeks before March 27? Disney had not even announced that it was buying the Hamilton film. To paraphrase Tommy Lee Jones in Men in Black, just think what we’ll know in ten weeks.
I sincerely hope that Mulan opens on July 24. But if most movie theaters aren’t prepared to handle large audiences, and if most large audiences aren’t going to brave the possibility of getting infected…well, we might be getting Mulan this fall or winter.
I’m just not ready to bet on 10 weeks from now.