(Photo: Walt Disney Studios)

You read that right… Disney’s Mulan is now coming to Disney+ instead of being released theatrically. After multiple delays and the more recent announcement that the film is postponed indefinitely, Disney has now decided to release the live-action remake on their streaming service. But, at a price of $29.99 (£22.99) that is.

On top of the $6.99 (£5.36) monthly subscription fee, subscribers will be able to watch the long-awaited remake at a premium price from September 4th “in the U.S., Canada, New Zealand, and number of countries”, CEO Bob Chapek said. Disney has yet to confirm if the same plan is in place for the UK or if Europe will follow suit of China as the film will be released theatrically in countries where theatres have re-opened.

Mulan was supposed to be released back in March 2020 and even had a Los Angeles and London premiere ahead of the big release, before COVID-19 crushed the expected box-office numbers. The film has been delayed three times since March, in hopes that theatres would be open by now but the ongoing pandemic has proved otherwise.

(Photo: Getty Images)

And if you’re wondering what Disney have planned for their other releases like Black Widow, the studio doesn’t plan on pulling the Marvel blockbuster or (any other Disney-backed films) out of theatres – yet. The PVOD release of Mulan will be a test-run to begin with and it all depends on if people pay the premium price whether more features will be released the same way or not.

Chapek also said, “We’re pleased to bring Mulan to a consumer base that’s been waiting for it as we’ve had to move our (release) dates several times…We’re looking at Mulan as a one-off as opposed trying to say that there’s a new business windowing model.” He added,

“It’s fairly expensive to produce for consumers the quality we’re known for. Rather than simply rolling (the movie) into a free offering, we thought we can test anything when you have your own platform. We’re trying to establish a new premiere access window to capture that investment we got (in the film). We’ll have a chance to learn from this. From our research under a premiere access offering, not only does it get us revenue from our original transaction of PVOD, but it’s a fairly large stimulus to sign up for Disney+.”

Mulan is directed by Niki Caro and stars Yifei Liu, Donnie Yen and Jet Li.