Disney is slashing the age-aged theatrical window to ribbons: The much-anticipated stay-motion remake of Mulan is skipping theaters in the U.S. and debuting on Disney+ on Friday, Sept. 4… for an added $29.99 rate, that is.

The news was announced in the course of Disney’s earnings contact on Tuesday, our sister internet site Wide range studies. Mulan — based on the 1998 animated movie and starring Liu Yifei as the titular female who poses as a boy to take her father’s place in China’s imperial army — was initially slated to be released in theaters again in March, but was delayed owing to the global coronavirus pandemic. A new premiere date was declared and then moved back again several a lot more times, till it was eradicated from Disney’s release calendar entirely previous month. (The movie is still expected to premiere in theaters internationally.)

Mulan is a person of the highest-profile theatrical movies to go straight to a streaming support or VOD this calendar year in response to the coronavirus outbreak, which has claimed more than 160,000 lives in the U.S. on your own. The Tom Hanks-starring Environment War II drama Greyhound, when certain for theaters, premiered on Apple Television set+ last thirty day period, even though movies like Trolls Globe Tour and The Invisible Gentleman became offered on VOD months ahead of agenda.

Disney is upping the ante, although, with the significant $29.99 price tag for Mulan. Other early VOD arrivals from important studios have been charging $19.99 at most for the advantage of observing a new Hollywood launch from the convenience of your couch. But Disney CEO Bob Chapek emphasizes that this isn’t the start out of a development: “We’re looking at Mulan as a just one-off, as opposed to stating there is some new enterprise windowing model that we’re searching at.”