Release Date Change / COVID-19 Pandemic Related Examples

Thanks to COVID-19, some films not only changed dates, they even had to change from theatrical releases to direct-to-digital.^note Mulan still saw a theatrical release in some countries where Disney+ wasn't available.

Starting in the spring of 2020, the COVID-19 Pandemic impacted the entire entertainment industry as productions were halted, release dates pushed back, and live performances shut down due to the outbreak threatening large gatherings (including theaters) and office work environments worldwide. With many larger countries struggling to get things under control, many works ended up seeing delays explicitly attributed to the pandemic.

In general, very few theatrical films that were scheduled prior to the initial closure of theaters in mid-March 2020 (in the United States) managed to avert this outcome. One notable exception was SCOOB!, which premiered as a digital release on the day it was planned to arrive in theaters;^note That film did eventually get a secondary North American theatrical release on the weekend of May 21-23, 2021. Cruella and Space Jam: A New Legacy, meanwhile, completed shooting pre-pandemic and met their planned 2021 release dates (albeit with simultaneous availability on digital platforms).

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Anime

• The anime adaptation of A3, which already had a Troubled Production from the start, had an episode delayed because it had a scene considered to be too similar to the then-recent coronavirus pandemic, being the first such media having its release changed for this reason.
• Black Clover has had its 133rd episode delayed from May 5 to July 7.
• Boruto halted airing new episodes starting on May 3 and will resume on July 5.
• The 2020 Case Closed movie, Detective Conan: The Scarlet Bullet, was delayed from its April 17th opening to April 2021.
• A Certain Scientific Railgun T had several delays between episodes before going on a two-month hiatus upon the completion of the season's first Story Arc with the 15th episode, all due to the pandemic impacting actual production. Specifically, there were:
  • A one-week gap between its 6th and 7th episodes.
  • A two-week gap between the 7th and 8th episodes.
  • A one-week gap between the 12th and 13th episodes.
  • A one-week gap between the 13th and 14th episodes.
  • A two-month gap between the 15th and 16th episodes. In this case, it was to ensure the remaining ten episodes can be aired without any more delays between them.
• The 28th Crayon Shin-chan movie was delayed from its April 28th opening to September 11th.
• Digimon:
  • The US Fathom Event for Digimon Adventure: Last Evolution Kizuna was postponed from its March 25 date. Shout! Factory also delayed the home release of the film from July 2020 to September 2020.
  • Digimon Adventure: (2020) was delayed after episode 3 due to production being halted as a result of the outbreak. It'll begin reairing on June 7 starting from the first episode.
• The 2020 Doraemon movie, Doraemon: Nobita's New Dinosaur, was delayed from its March 6th opening. It was eventually rescheduled for August 7, which as a result, caused the Stand by Me Doraemon 2 CG film which was originally scheduled at that date to be delayed to November 20. The remake of Doraemon: Nobita's Little Space War was similarly postponed to 2021 as a result.
• The first film for Fate/Grand Order - Divine Realm of the Round Table: Camelot was delayed from its August 15th debut to December 5, 2020. The second part was initially scheduled to be release on May 8, 2021 but it was delayed to May 15 after a state of emergency was declared.
• The third Fate/stay night: Heaven's Feel film had to be delayed from March 28 to April 25. It ended up delayed again after the Japanese government declared a state of emergency and eventually got rescheduled to August 15.
• Food Wars!'s fifth season halted airing after three episodes following its debut in April. It'll restart from the beginning on July 3.
• Funimation had to pause dubbing of ongoing series due to trying to adjust production so staff could work from home. Crunchyroll and Sentai Filmworks followed suit with a similar announcement.
• Go! Anpanman: Fluffy Fuwari and the Cloud Country was delayed from its intended release date of June 26th, 2020 to Summer 2021.
• The 2020 revival anime of The Genie Family began on April 11, but began airing reruns on May 30. It would later resume airing new episodes on June 20.
• Infinite Dendrogram had its 7th episode delayed a week.
• The second season of The Irregular at Magic High School was delayed from July 2020 to October of the same year.
• The third season of Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? was delayed from July to at least October.
• Kukuriraige -Sanxingdui Fantasy- and its accompanying short film Jewelpet Attack Travel! were delayed from their intended release date of February 7th, 2020. While Kukuriraige ended up ignoring a release for the foreseeable future, Jewelpet Attack Travel! did premiere on May 14th, 2022 as a digital release on Niconico Live.
• The third season of Log Horizon was delayed from October to January 2021.
• Majo Minarai Wo Sagashite was delayed from May 2020 to fall of the same year.
• The first installment of the Mobile Suit Gundam Hathaway movie trilogy was delayed from July 23rd, 2020 to May 7. 2021.
• Theater showings Monster Strike The Movie: Lucifer Zetsubō no Yoake was delayed from June 2020 to November. There will be in mid-June preview screening on Youtube, however.
• The third season of My Youth Romantic Comedy Is Wrong, as I Expected was postponed just two days from its original April 9th, 2020 airdate. In its place, the second season will reair. It's set to return on July 9.
• The second half of the No Guns Life anime was supposed to premiere on April 9th, but it was delayed to July 9th.
• The 930th episode of One Piece was delayed from its April 26th airdate as the anime went on hiatus. It returned on June 28, 2020.
• Pokémon examples:
  • The Japanese dub of Pokémon Journeys: The Series went on hiatus from episode 23 onwards, with reruns being aired in its place after episode 22. The anime would emerge from its hiatus starting on June 7.
  • The 23rd film, Pokémon: Secrets of the Jungle was delayed from its planned July 10 release date in Japan; and several promotional events tied to the film were also canceled as a result. Pre-sales resumed in August with the movie itself pushed to Christmas day.
  • The fifth episode of the OVA Pokémon: Twilight Wings was pushed back from its May premiere date to June 5.
• Pretty Cure:
  • Pretty Cure Miracle Leap: A Mysterious Day With Everyone was postponed from its March 20th, 2020 release date to May 16th, and then was delayed once more after Tokyo announced a state of emergency. To explain the scenario to children, a special video was produced to explain it starring a Cure Grace costume character. It was finally given an October 31, 2020 premiere date.
  • Healin' Good♡Pretty Cure was postponed at the last minute the day episode 13 was slated to air, with reruns being shown from that point onward. It resumed on June 28.
• The sequel film to the Princess Principal anime was postponed from its April 10th opening date.
• The second season of The Promised Neverland was delayed from October 2020 to January 2021. As a result, a rerun of the first season will air in its place.
• The second season of The Quintessential Quintuplets' anime was held back from October 2020 to January 2021.
• The fourth and final Rebuild of Evangelion film, Evangelion 3.0+1.0: Thrice Upon a Time, was postponed from a planned release date of June 27, 2020. Despite this, the film's tie-in Tamagotchi toy, the Evatchi, managed to hit stores on its intended release date of June 13th, 2020. The film later received a new date of January 23, 2021 which eventually got delayed again after the Japanese government declared another state of emergency. Later, Studio Khara announced that the film would finally be released on March 8, 2021.
• The second season of Re:Zero was delayed from April to July, and the change in production schedule forced the second season to become a split 2-cour instead of a concurrent 2-cour season.
• The first film of the Sailor Moon Eternal duology was to debut in theaters on September 11th, but was then delayed to January 8, 2021.
• The Seven Deadly Sins: Dragons's Judgement was originally slated for October 2020, but a delay was announced in May. It is set to air in January 2021.
• Shimajiro & the Sky Flying Ship abandoned its intended release date of February 28th, 2020, ultimately premiering on March 12th, 2021 instead.
• The 21st issue of Shonen Jump for the year ended up being delayed when a member of the editorial department was suspected to have contracted the virus. So instead of coming out on April 20, the issue's contents will be merged with the following issue still scheduled for release on April 27. This was followed by the delay of several manga volumes that were due to come out from May 1 to May 13.
• Shoujo Kageki Revue Starlight: Rondo Rondo Rondo was pushed back from May 29th to August 7th, 2020.
• The second half of Sword Art Online Alicization - War of Underworld was set to begin airing on April 25, but was moved to July 11. In its place, the first half will reair starting April 18.
• That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime had its second season delayed from October 2020 to January 2021.
• The 2020 Toei Manga Matsuri Anthology Film, which featured new shorts based on Kamen Rider Den-O and Butt Detective, was delayed from its April 24th opening date due to the state of emergency at the time.
• Warlords of Sigrdrifa was to air in the Summer season of 2020, but the lockdown forced the show to air in the Autumn season instead.
• After its production was already affected by the Kyoto Animation arson incident, the Violet Evergarden movie had its release delayed. It was targeting a September 18, 2020 release.

Audio Drama

• Big Finish Productions managed to find some positives from the situation, due to being able to record with actors remotely; the second series of Callan, which had been indefinitely delayed for some time due to lead actor Ben Miles' other commitments, was finally able to be recorded, and they managed to record several years' worth of Doctor Who stories with David Tennant, who had previously only been available sporadically. However, several other releases had to be postponed or rethought due to unfortunate resemblances to the real-life effects of the pandemic (affected releases included two Doctor Who stories recorded pre-pandemic and a planned seventh series of Torchwood), and scheduled recordings had to be put on hold indefinitely in cases where they couldn't record with the actors from their homes (mostly actors who live in America meaning they couldn't get recording equipment sent out to them).

Comedy

• Eddie Murphy was planning to head out on his first stand-up tour in decades in 2020, but put it on hold.

Comic Books

• Diamond Comic Distributors, North America's primary comic book distributor, announced on March 23 that it had stopped accepting new products into its inventory, preventing the release of most new American comics until distribution resumed on May 20. The delays also affected the digital versions of the comics, with all major publishers choosing to postpone any digital releases until day-and-date release with the print version was once again possible.
• One title that was notably affected by Diamond’s temporary shutdown was Sonic the Hedgehog (IDW). The last few issues of the comic’s Metal Virus arc (the 2020 annual issue and issues 28-32) were supposed to come out from March to June, but ended up instead being released from June to September.
• DC Comics, seeking to get its new titles back into stores before Diamond's reopening, ended its decades-long exclusivity agreement with Diamond and partnered with two additional distributors, Lunar Distribution and UCS Comic Distributors (spinoffs of the large mail-order comic stores Discount Comic Book Service and Midtown Comics, respectively). DC's new releases resumed on April 29, marking the publisher's shift from a Wednesday-based release schedule to a Tuesday-based one. On June 5, DC announced it was completely severing ties with Diamond and only releasing its titles through Lunar and UCS going forward.
• A number of DC and Marvel Comics series nearing the ends of their runs had the print release of their final issues canceled, with the stories only being made available through digital or as part of a trade paperback. Some of the affected titles included DC's Supergirl and The Terrifics and Marvel's Ghost Spider. It was later announced, however, that at least some of these finales (such as Hawkeye: Freefall) would be printed, albeit on a delayed timeline.
• Marvel's big summer event for 2020, Empyre, was originally scheduled to begin in early April, but Diamond's hold on distributions went into effect right around the same time. Empyre ultimately began in mid-July, but the delays resulted in Marvel having to scrap a third of their solicited tie-ins for the event (including a one-shot spinoff of Ms. Marvel (2014) starring the Stormrager suit) with no plan to complete them.
• The entire Dawn of X line was generally delayed (which in turn pushed the X of Swords Bat Family Crossover further) which, according to head X-Men editor Jordan D. White, led to some creative reshuffling behind the scenes and putting off certain (unannounced) plans for upcoming titles. One of the titles that was known, Children of the Atom, got pushed back and was finally published a year later.
• Originally announced in 2018, Wonder Woman Historia: The Amazons was finally solicited for a October 2021 release before being pushed back to late-November/early-December due to paper shortages in the global supply chain caused by the pandemic.

Eastern Animation

• Mavka: The Forest Song was set for release in 2020, but delays due to graphic overhaul, the pandemic itself then the war of aggression by Russia in Ukraine pushed it to 2023.
• Nu, Pogodi! Kanikuly was set to release on December 2020, but was postponed until December of next year.

Film — Animated

• The Addams Family 2 was initially scheduled for October 22, 2021, then moved forward slightly to October 8. It was then pushed forward to October 1 in order to accomodate MGM stablemate No Time to Die, which was placed there after a long series of pandemic delays. Addams Family held firm on October 1 even when faced with a challenge from Hotel Transylvania: Transformania, which was briefly scheduled for the same date until it was taken off the theatrical release calendar completely.
• Agent Backkom Kings Bear, based on Bernard (known as Backkom in South Korea and China), was originally supposed to be released in February 2020 but got delayed to 2021.
• The Bad Guys (2022) was first slated for September 17, 2021. Due to the pandemic, it was eventually moved to April 15, 2022. It was then later moved a week later, leaving April 22, 2022 as its final date.
• The Bob's Burgers Movie was first moved from July 17, 2020 to April 9, 2021, and then was completely dropped from Disney's schedule. It was eventually redated for May 27, 2022.
• The Boss Baby: Family Business was originally scheduled to launch March 26, 2021, before being pushed back to September 17. It was then pulled forward to July 2 for a simultaneous release in theaters and on Peacock.
• After a prolonged stint in Development Hell, The Croods: A New Age had seemingly settled on December 23rd, 2020 for a release date. However, after Universal struck deals with American cinema chains AMC and Cinemark for a 17-day theatrical exclusivity frame - and (accurate) rumors began to spread that Soul and No Time to Die would abandon their planned Thanksgiving release dates due to the pandemic's continued spread - Croods was shifted forward to November 25th, setting it up for a PVOD digital release in mid-December.
• Disney bumped up the Disney+ release of Frozen II from June 2020 to March 15, 2020 in the U.S. in order to cheer up families and kids who were stuck at home to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
• In an unusual case, the first few shifts for Hotel Transylvania: Transformania consistently pushed the film earlier, rather than later, as the promise of the pandemic subsiding grew. Initially scheduled for December 22, 2021, it jumped forward to August 6, then to July 23. Following the underperformance of Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway, the film was pushed back to October 1. The film was then pulled from the calendar after it was sold to Amazon Studios, which eventually announced a Prime Video release date of January 14, 2022.
• Intended to release on January 25th, 2020, Jiang Ziya instead was postponed to October 1st of the same year.
• Minions: The Rise of Gru was pulled from its original July 3, 2020 release date and delayed an entire year to July 2, 2021 after COVID-19 concerns prevented Illumination's animators from finishing the movie on time. It was then pushed back another year to July 1, 2022, making it the longest-delayed film of the pandemic at the time at almost a full two years.
• The Mitchells vs. the Machines was pushed back from September 18 to October 23, 2020, then later pulled off the schedule, before being bought by Netflix for a streaming release on April 30, 2021. The announcement of the acquisition was also accompanied by the film reverting to its original title after previously being renamed Connected.
• The film adaptation of NIMONA was initially scheduled for February 14, 2020, but was pushed back to March 5, 2021 following Disney's acquisition of Fox. Pandemic delays led to another push to January 14, 2022. However, in early 2021, Disney would shutter Blue Sky Studios, which was producing Nimona, ending its production. Eventually, the film was resurrected in 2022 when Annapurna Pictures and Netflix acquired the film, eventually releasing it on June 30, 2023.
• Onward was able to make its intended release date of March 6, 2020, but its box office earnings were significantly impacted by the pandemic. As a result, Disney released it for digital download only two weeks later on March 20, with it coming to Disney+ on April 3 and home video on May 19 in the US and Canada. It was delayed in numerous other countries, as a result of its release schedule following Pixar's typical pattern of staggered international debuts.
• Raya and the Last Dragon was pushed back from November 25, 2020 to March 12, 2021. It actually underwent significant changes following the delay, including the lead role being recast with Kelly Marie Tran. The film was later shifted forward to March 5; the film was simultaneously announced as a day-and-date theatrical and Disney+ Premier Access release.
• Ron's Gone Wrong was pushed back from February 26 to April 23, 2021, then moved further back to October 22.
• Paramount shifted Rumble from its initial January 29, 2021 date first to May 2021, then to February 18, 2022; then moved up to December 15, 2021 alongside a shift to an exclusive run on Paramount+.
• Averted by SCOOB!, which was pulled from its originally planned May 15, 2020 release, then abandoned a theatrical release altogether. It instead released on VOD, still on its original date of May 15. It then got an early release onto HBO Max in late June, followed by an eventual theatrical release on May 21, 2021.
• Sing 2 was pushed back from July 2 to December 22, 2021.
• Soul was pushed back from June 19 to November 20, 2020 before Disney made the decision to move it to Disney+ for a Christmas Day release. It received theatrical release in countries where Disney+ isn't available, much like the Mulan remake; unlike Mulan, Soul was available to all Disney+ subscribers from the start.
• What would eventually be revealed to be Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse was moved from April 8 to October 7, 2022 and later to June 2023.
• The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run was pushed back twice, first from May 22 to July 31, then to August 7, 2020, before being changed to a release on PVOD and on Paramount+ on March 4, 2021 (as a debut day film for the service’s rebranding) in the United States. Outside the U.S., the film opened theatrically in Canada on August 14; most other countries saw the film debut on Netflix on November 5, 2020.
• The Tigers Apprentice was delayed an entire year from February 11, 2022 to February 10, 2023.
• Trolls World Tour initially moved from April 17 to April 10, 2020 after No Time to Die moved to November. However, when the outbreak started shutting down theaters, Universal made what was then an unprecedented move to release the film on VOD at the same time as the theatrical release, before eventually pulling it from theaters altogether after all cinemas closed down. The strategy paid off for Universal, as they could take a bigger cut of the profits than they could have if it were released in theaters (according to Deadline Hollywood, it already made more money for Universal than the entire box office gross of its predecessor, even though it grossed four times less).
• Vivo was pushed back from April 2 to June 4, 2021. Following its Channel Hop to Netflix, it was given a final date of August 6, 2021.

Film — Live-Action

• Various movies got early digital releases after theaters began closing, with most of them having only been playing for a few weeks:
  • Bad Boys for Life
  • Birds of Prey
  • Bloodshot
  • The Call of the Wild
  • Emma. (2020)
  • The Hunt
  • Impractical Jokers: The Movie
  • The Invisible Man
  • I Still Believe
  • Never Rarely Sometimes Always
  • Portrait of a Lady on Fire^*also released early on Hulu
  • Sonic The Hedgehog
  • The Way Back
  • In a milder case, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker hit digital (and Disney+) earlier than planned.
  • While The Lodge maintained its scheduled digital release, it was also made available on Hulu the same day.
• Aline premiered on October 4, 2020 in a single theater in Le Chesnay, France, and was supposed to undergo wide release in the country right thereafter, but worsening sanitary conditions of the pandemic pushed its release over a year later to November 2021. The same about its Canadian, Belgian and Swiss releases.
• An American Pickle was scheduled for theatrical release and was eventually moved to HBO Max to be streamed starting on 6 August 2020, becoming that streaming platform's first original film.
• Antebellum was pulled from its original April 24, 2020 release date and later pushed back to August 21, before later being pulled again, and then made a VOD release on September 18.
• Antlers was originally set to be released on April 17, 2020 before being postponed indefinitely. It was initially rescheduled for February 19, 2021, but with less than a month to go before that date it was pushed back to October 29.
• Archive was originally intended to debut at the South By Southwest film festival in March 2020, before it was cancelled. Instead the film was given a digital and limited theatrical release on July 10 2020.
• The previously-delayed Artemis Fowl was not only pulled from its May 29, 2020 slot, but was made a Disney+ release instead, releasing on June 12.
• All four Avatar sequels were pushed back a full year. The third through fifth installments would see further delays as a result of Disney's release date shuffles during the 2023 WGA strike.
  • Avatar: The Way of Water: December 17, 2021 to December 16, 2022
  • Avatar 3: December 22, 2023 to December 20, 2024 (later December 19, 2025)
  • Avatar 4: December 19, 2025 to December 18, 2026 (later December 21, 2029)
  • Avatar 5: December 17, 2027 to December 22, 2028 (later December 19, 2031)
• Bad Trip was pulled from its original April 17, 2020 theatrical release date and subsequently acquired by Netflix to release on March 26, 2021. However, the film was briefly put on Amazon Prime Video by accident on the original release date.
• Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar, originally scheduled for a theatrical release on July 31, 2020, was pushed back to a direct-to-VOD release on February 12, 2021.
• The Batman had done six weeks of filming in early 2020 when it was halted for six months between March and September. Filming took a grand total of fourteen months due to recurring cases after production resumed. Because of all of the delays it was pushed back first from June 25 to October 1, 2021 and then for a second time to March 4, 2022.
• Bem Bom: The pandemic pushed the film's release from June 2020 to November of the same year, then to July 2021, which stuck.
• Bill & Ted Face the Music was originally intended to release on August 21st, 2020, but then due to the other film delays connected to the coronavirus outbreak, it was rescheduled first to August 14th, and then to August 28th to avoid conflicting with the rescheduled release of Tenet. It later moved to a simultaneous limited theatrical and VOD release date of September 1st, which was later pushed up back to August 28th again after Tenet and Mulan shifted to that weekend. The last date finally stuck.
• The US release of Rapman's directorial debut Blue Story was originally set for March 20, 2020 before being pulled, and instead released digitally on May 5.
• Sony Pictures acquired the romantic comedy The Broken Hearts Gallery with the apparent intent of using it as a test for further theatrical releases as theaters reopened, setting it for July 10th (between Unhinged and Tenet). However, as the pandemic continued to rage, theaters failed to reopen and the film was incrementally pushed back, before ultimately being pulled from the schedule completely. The film was eventually rescheduled for and released on September 11th, 2020.
• Sony's Bullet Train was pushed back from April 8, 2022 to July 15 of that year to make room for some of Sony's COVID-delayed titles, such as Uncharted and Morbius. It was later nudged back to July 29, then August 5 to avoid directly competing with other major summer titles.
• The Candyman revival film was initially moved from June 12 to September 25, 2020, then October 16 after Halloween Kills vacated that date. A month before release, it was pushed back again, this time to August 27, 2021.
• Sony's Camila Cabello-starring adaptation of Cinderella held its original date of February 5, 2021 until the very last minute, when it was pushed back to July 16; the film was eventually sold to Amazon Studios, which released the film on September 3.
• Paramount's Clifford the Big Red Dog movie was pushed back from November 13th, 2020 to November 5th, 2021. It later moved forward to September 17, 2021, but was later pulled from the schedule due to concerns over the spread of the delta variant. The divisive reception to the title character's appearance along with the disappointing opening weekend box office of the below-mentioned Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins also likely played a factor. Following the successful dual-release for PAW Patrol: The Movie, the film was eventually moved to November 10, 2021 with a simultaneous launch on Paramount+.
• Coming 2 America, the long-awaited sequel to Coming to America, was initially set to be released by Paramount on August 7th, 2020, then was later pushed back to December 18th. Eventually, Paramount opted for a lucrative streaming deal instead, selling the film domestically to Amazon Studios for an estimated $125 million. Amazon then pushed the release to March 5th in order to prepare its marketing campaign and avoid competing with Wonder Woman 1984 and Soul.
• The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It, the third mainline entry in the The Conjuring Universe, was pushed back from September 11, 2020 to June 4, 2021.
• DC Extended Universe:
  • Wonder Woman 1984: Got delayed no less than five times. It was originally slated to release December 13, 2019, then moved up to November 1, 2019, then was moved to June 5, 2020 in the middle of its production in the fall of 2018. According to one of the producers, the team (and chiefly Party Jenkins) had wanted the June date all along and were worried they'd have to rush to meet the November date. Once the schedule shifted some (especially with there not being a Marvel Cinematic Universe movie that summer once Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3 got delayed), Toby Emmerich, the new studio head, gave them the extra time they wanted. Before the marketing ramped up in Spring 2020, the film was then pushed back again, to August 14, this time due to the COVID-19 Pandemic keeping theaters shut down and wreaking havoc on the overall release schedule. It was moved once again, this time to October 2, 2020 to get some space from Tenet after it was pushed back. Then it was moved yet again to December 25 this time around, despite a rise in COVID-19 cases around the world in Q4 of 2020. Finally, it was announced in November 2020 that the film would be released in theaters and streaming for a one-month duration on HBO Max on Christmas Day. This became the basis for the release of all of Warner Bros.' 2021 theatrical films.
  • Almost averted by The Suicide Squad, which had been set for a release date of August 6, 2021 well before the pandemic and completed shooting ahead of lockdowns. However, due to the simultaneous HBO Max release, the film officially released one day earlier on August 5th, in order to ensure its streaming debut overlaps with what would normally be considered its "Thursday preview" screenings.^note Most HBO Max Same-Day Premiere titles had simply skipped Thursday previews to avoid separating the theatrical and streaming launches.
  • Black Adam was pulled from its original December 22, 2021 release date, and was eventually moved to July 29, 2022, then later moved to October 21.
  • The Flash moved up from July 1 to June 22, 2022, then later to November 4, 2022. Finally, it was pushed back to June 23, 2023, due to what the studio cited as "production delays."
  • Shazam! - Fury of the Gods was pushed back from April 1 to November 4, 2022, then later to June 2, 2023, and then moved up to December 16, 2022 (taking Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom's planned date). It was then pushed back five days to December 21, avoiding a head-to-head matchup with Avatar: The Way of Water, before being delayed a final time to March 14, 2023, reportedly due to Warner Bros. Discovery's financial difficulties.
• Kenneth Branagh's Death on the Nile was pushed back from October 9 to October 23, 2020, then to December 18, then was pulled from schedules altogether for a time before being penciled in for September 17, 2021. It was later pushed back further to February 11, 2022 (with industry rumors suggesting Disney did this less due to the pandemic and more to distance it from scandals surrounding second male lead Armie Hammer). Due to the delays, the film is now set to open after Branagh's next film in production order, Belfast.
• The Ben Affleck and Ana de Armas thriller Deep Water was pushed back from November 13, 2020 to August 13, 2021, then again to January 14, 2022. It was delayed so long that the two stars had a yearlong Romance on the Set that ended with almost 12 months to go before the third release date — which would later be cancelled, and the film shifted to a streaming debut (Hulu domestic, Prime Video internationally), with a US release date of March 18, 2022 eventually announced.
• Downton Abbey: A New Era was originally scheduled for December 22, 2021; however, with a glut of COVID-delayed features scheduled for that day (including Sing 2, from the same parent company), it was pushed back to March 18, 2022. It was then moved to a summer release on May 20, 2022, with an early UK release on April 29.
• Denis Villeneuve's Dune was pushed back from December 18, 2020 to October 1, 2021. It then moved to October 22 to avoid competing with Hotel Transylvania: Transformania. It was released overseas beginning September 15, 2021 to get as much worldwide box office money as possible before widespread piracy caused by the HBO Max release hits. Similar to The Suicide Squad, the film was officially released a day earlier on October 21 so that its streaming release overlapped with theatrical preview screenings.
• Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves was pushed back from November 22, 2021 to May 27, 2022. It then moved back nearly a year to March 3, 2023 as part of a chain of Paramount delays, and then was pushed one final time to March 31 of the same year.
• The Elvis Presley biopic directed by Baz Luhrmann (one of the first films to be disrupted by the pandemic in that Tom Hanks, who played Colonel Tom Parker, was sickened and had to go into quarantine) was pushed back from October 1 to November 5, 2021. It later moved to June 3, 2022, then slightly further to June 24. As a result of the production disruption, much of the film's supporting cast changed.
• The Empty Man was moved from August 7 to December 4, 2020, then pushed up to October 23.
• Escape Room: Tournament of Champions was scheduled for August 14th, 2020 but got multiple changes to the release date, with the COVID-19 outbreak being one of the factors. It was rescheduled to January 1st, 2021, before later being pulled from the schedule. After being re-dated for January 7, 2022, it was then pulled forward to July 16, 2021.
• Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga would come out in May, along the musical event featured. With its cancellation (see the Live-Action TV section below), the film came out on Netflix in June.
• The film adaptation of Everybody's Talking About Jamie was pushed from October 23, 2020 to January 23, 2021, then to February 26. After eventually pulling the film from the schedule, 20th Century Studios sold it to Amazon Studios, who rescheduled it for September 17. A limited theatrical release was later set for the week beforehand on September 10.
• Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore was just about to start filming in March 2020 for a November 2021 release when production was halted. It resumed production in September but the delay forced its release back to July 2022. After the film's reshoots were completed, it was pushed up to April 15. (It had previously been pushed back a year from November 2020 due to a re-write of the script and female lead Katherine Waterston’s pregnancy.)
• F9 (or Fast and Furious 9) was originally slated for May 22, 2020, but was pushed back almost a year to April 2, 2021 because of the outbreak, taking the place of the planned tenth film, which in turn was delayed to another date. F9 was later delayed further to May 28, then to June 25. It released early overseas beginning May 19.
  • Fast X moved from April 2, 2021 all the way back to (due to production delays courtesy of the pandemic) April 7, 2023.
• Fatherhood moved up from January 15, 2021 to October 23, 2020, but then was pushed back to April 2, 2021. It was later acquired by Netflix, which set the release for June 18, 2021.
• The Tom Hanks science fiction drama Finch (2021) was originally set to release on October 2, 2020 courtesy of Universal. It was initially delayed to April 16, 2021, then to August 13 before being sold to Apple TV+, which renamed the film (originally titled BIOS) and re-dated it for November 5.
• First Cow managed to come out in limited release on March 6, but was pulled before the film could expand beyond 36 theaters. Originally intended to be re-released theatrically at a later point, it was instead released on VOD in July.
• The Forever Purge was pulled from its original July 10, 2020 release date and later pushed back a year to July 9, 2021. It then moved forward one week to July 2.
• France was due to release in 2020 and was pushed to Fall 2021.
• Free Guy moved from July 3 to December 11, 2020, and then got pulled from schedule. It was then redated for May 21, 2021, before being pushed back to August 13.
• The French Dispatch moved from July 14, with the world premiere set for the (cancelled) May 2020 Cannes Film Festival, to October 16, 2020, then was pulled from the schedule completely. It was eventually given a new date of October 22, 2021.
• Ghostbusters: Afterlife was moved from July 10, 2020 to March 5, 2021, then pushed back again to June 11, and then to November 11. It then jumped to November 19 after Top Gun: Maverick evacuated the slot.
• Godzilla vs. Kong was pushed back from November 20, 2020 to May 21, 2021 and then became a simultaneous day-and-date debut in theaters and HBO Max. From there, it was pushed up to March 26, then back slightly to March 31.
• The Green Knight was pulled from its original May 29, 2020 release date and rescheduled for July 30, 2021. This allowed director David Lowery to re-edit the film extensively from what it would have been in 2020. It was later pulled from a planned August 6, 2021 release in the UK due to a midsummer surge in COVID cases.
• Greyhound was pulled from its original June 12, 2020 theatrical release date and later moved to Apple TV+, releasing on July 10.
• Halloween Kills was pushed back a year from October 16, 2020 to October 15, 2021, as was its follow-up, Halloween Ends, which moved from October 15, 2021 to October 14, 2022.
• A rare case of release anticipation happened with the filmed performance of Hamilton: originally scheduled for late 2021, the pandemic stopping theatrical releases and also shutting down the original play along with the rest of Broadway made it hit Disney+ on July 2020.
• The Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard, the sequel to The Hitman's Bodyguard, was delayed from August 27, 2020 to August 20, 2021. It then moved forward to June 16, 2021 after fellow Ryan Reynolds feature Free Guy moved to August (just one week before Bodyguard).
• Following the first delay of Tenet (see below), a 10th-anniversary rerelease of Inception was subsequently scheduled to take its place. It was incrementally pushed back alongside the new film. It ultimately opened on August 21st, 2020 (August 14th in numerous international territories).
• Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny was pushed back a year from July 9, 2021 to July 29, 2022. It then fell back to June 30, 2023.
• Infinite was pushed back from August 7, 2020 to May 28, 2021. It was then pushed further to September 24 after A Quiet Place Part II took its May slot. The film's theatrical release was eventually cancelled and the film became a Paramount+ original, released on June 10, 2021.
• The film adaptation of In the Heights was pulled from its original June 26, 2020 release date and later pushed back a year to June 18, 2021. It was later moved one week earlier to June 11, then one day earlier to June 10.
• Jackass Forever was pushed back from July 2 to September 3, 2021, then slightly further to October 22. It then moved to February 4, 2022 alongside delays for the rest of Paramount's slate.
• Joe Bell was pushed back from February 19, 2021 to July 23, partially due to its original distributor Solstice Studios dropping the film due to pandemic-induced financial problems; it was instead picked up by Roadside Attractions.
• John Wick: Chapter 4 was pushed back from May 21, 2021 to May 27, 2022 - then pushed back again to March 24, 2023 after another round of production delays in Lionsgate’s slate.
• Jungle Cruise was pushed back a year from July 24, 2020 to July 30, 2021.
• Jurassic World Dominion was pushed back a year from June 11, 2021 to June 10, 2022. Even though it was able to wrap principal photography well before 2020 ended, Universal Pictures didn't want it to crowd out the many 2020 would-be blockbusters that had been delayed.
• Kaamelott: Premier Volet (The Movie of the Kaamelott series) was supposed to come out in France on July 29, 2020 after a first change that was unrelated to the pandemic. Then the pandemic had it moved to November 25, which didn't stick due to theaters still being closed in France. It was eventually pushed to July 21, 2021.
• The King of Staten Island was originally set for a theatrical release on June 19, 2020, but after the closure of theaters and the success of Trolls: World Tour, Universal decided to release it on VOD a week earlier on June 12.
• The Will Smith vehicle King Richard was pushed back a year from November 25, 2020 to November 19, 2021.
• The King's Man had similar, if not worse, bad luck as The New Mutants: It was set to be released on November 8, 2019, but was later moved to February 14, 2020. Shortly before release, the film was then pushed to September 18, 2020. As the outbreak took hold, Disney held out hope the September date was distanced enough from the peak of the pandemic to ensure a safe launch, even releasing a new trailer; however, with less than a month to go, the film was pushed back yet again to February 26th, 2021. It was then later pushed up two weeks to February 12, and then to one month later to March 12, and then to August 20 and finally to December 22. Due to the Disney buyout of Fox, Disney was contractually obligated to release it theatrically.
• The Last Duel was pushed back from December 25, 2020 to October 15, 2021.
• Last Night in Soho was pulled from its original September 25, 2020 release date and was rescheduled for April 23, 2021, then pushed further back to October 22. It then moved one week further to October 29 after Dune was rescheduled for October 22.
• The Lovebirds was pulled from its original April 3, 2020 theatrical release date and debuted on Netflix instead on May 22.
• Malignant was pulled from its original August 14, 2020 release date, eventually being rescheduled for September 10, 2021.
• The Man from Toronto was pushed back from November 20, 2020 to September 17, 2021, then further back to January 14, 2022. It then moved to August 12, 2022, 19 months after its original date, before eventually being pulled from the schedule and sold to Netflix, which will release the film sometime in 2022.
• The Many Saints of Newark, the prequel film to The Sopranos, was pushed back from September 25, 2020 to March 12, 2021. It later moved to September 24, 2021 to accomodate Godzilla vs. Kong, then a week further to October 1 after Dune was pushed further into the month.
• The Marvel Cinematic Universe got shuffled around, as Marvel Studios had already announced films through 2021 and staked out release dates to 2022, so they initially just pushed all of their films back one release slot:
  • Black Widow (2021) moved from May 1, 2020 to November 6, 2020, then to May 7, 2021. This makes 2020 the first year since 2009 without a MCU movie being released. Black Widow was eventually marked as a hybrid theatrical and Disney+ Premier Access release on July 9, 2021.
  • Eternals, which originally had the November slot, was moved to February 12, 2021, then moved to November 5, 2021, which pushed it behind Shang-Chi on the release schedule.
  • Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (whose production was shut down early in the pandemic, given it was filming in China right as COVID broke out) moved from February to May 7, 2021, then to July 9, 2021, with a 45 days theatrical window till it hit Disney+. It then moved further to September 3 to accommodate a delay for Black Widow.
  • Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness went from May to November 5, 2021. It then moved to March 25, 2022, then later May 6, 2022 to accomodate production delays for the MCU slate.
  • Thor: Love and Thunder was bumped from its original November date to the first unclaimed release date of February 18, 2022. It's unknown what was originally planned for that date. It then shifted to May 6, 2022, then was nudged to July 8 by Doctor Strange.
  • The following scheduled release date of May 6, 2022 was already known to be a sequel to Black Panther (later titled Black Panther: Wakanda Forever) and initially left unchanged. However, after the film had to be completely reworked after the death of Chadwick Boseman, who played T'Challa, it was bumped up a few weeks to July 8. Following moves for Doctor Strange and Thor, it then moved to November 11, 2022.
  • Originally, there was also an unidentified release planned for July 29, 2022. That date was moved forward to July 8 in order to accommodate Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny's delay and announced as The Marvels, the sequel to Captain Marvel, though it was later moved to November 11 to accommodate for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’s delay to July 8, then to February 17, 2023 to adjust for delays for most Marvel releases. It later moved to July 28, 2023, swapping places with Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, then was pushed back further to November 10, 2023.
  • As part of the aforementioned chain of delays that took place in late 2021 to accomodate delayed productions, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania moved from February 17, 2023 to July 28, 2023, before jumping back to February 17 (swapping places with The Marvels).
  • Sony announced that the then-untitled Spider-Man: No Way Home would move from July 16, 2021 to November 5 (which Marvel Studios had previously reserved for Thor and then Doctor Strange); with the Uncharted film adaptation taking over the July slot (temporarily, see below). It was later moved further to December 17 after Avatar: The Way of Water vacated that spot.
• The Matrix Resurrections was pushed back from May 21, 2021 to April 1, 2022, then later pushed up to December 22, 2021.
• Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning and its sequel were pushed back from July 23 to November 19, 2021 and from August 5 to November 4, 2022 respectively. They were then pushed further to May 27, 2022 and July 27, 2023, respectively to accomodate a delay for Top Gun: Maverick. The production of the sequel was then put on hold and Dead Reckoning was rescheduled for September 30, 2022 due to another Top Gun delay. Then, in early 2022, both films were pushed back yet again, with Dead Reckoning set for July 14, 2023 and Part Two set for June 28, 2024 (that one was then pushed to May 2025, for reasons unrelated to the pandemic).
• Monster Hunter (2020) was moved back from September 4, 2020 to April 23, 2021, then later moved back up to December 30, 2020. After Wonder Woman 1984 was announced as a day-and-date digital release, Monster Hunter was then moved forward to December 25th, then finally crept forward to December 18th. It's speculated that the reason it moved back into 2020 was due to the previous Paul W.S. Anderson and Milla Jovovich video game movie, 2017's Resident Evil: The Final Chapter, having been a huge hit in China (where the theatrical industry largely recovered from the pandemic by mid-2020) despite flopping in the United States. This became troublesome, however, when Monster Hunter was pulled from Chinese theaters over a line deemed racist by many viewers, nuking its primary market. The line was subsequently cut from all future releases of the film as the actor apologized on his social media feeds.
• The Rurouni Kenshin Saishusho duology, consisting of Rurouni Kenshin: The Beginning and Rurouni Kenshin: The Final, was scheduled for August 7th, 2020 and July 3rd, 2020 respectively. Both were pushed back to Spring 2021.
• Mortal Kombat was initially scheduled for March 5, 2021 before moving forward to January 15. After Warner Bros. announced its 2021 hybrid theatrical/HBO Max pandemic release strategy, the film was pushed back to April 16, then again to April 23 to leave some additional breathing room for Godzilla vs. Kong.
• Mulan was supposed to be released March 27, 2020, and had its world premiere screening earlier that month, but the pandemic scuttled this; it was later delayed to July 24, and then further pushed back a little more to August 21, only to be pulled off the schedule again after another spike in cases. Previously, Disney intended to only delay the release in China, where the pandemic had originated. The film debuted on Disney+ (as the service's inaugural "Premier Access" release, costing $30 extra to stream) on September 4th; it later became available to all regular subscribers in December. Theatrical releases occurred only in territories in which Disney+ is not available.
• Already having delayed it once, STX pushed the American release of My Spy from March 13 to April 17, 2020, before withdrawing from a theatrical release altogether, and heading to Amazon Prime Video instead on June 26.
• The New Mutants was scheduled to be released on April 13, 2018, but ended up getting pushed back almost a full year later to February 22, 2019 to avoid coming too close to Deadpool 2. It was then moved again to a tentative August 2, 2019 release date to avoid running into Dark Phoenix. Another delay shifted it to April 3, 2020 to allow the director to make adjustments to the film, which it was seemingly on target to hit... until the film was delayed again when the pandemic hit a month before, which led to the date being briefly pulled until it got a fifth (and thankfully final) release date of August 28, 2020, as one of the only major American films released during summer 2020.
• Searchlight Pictures' The Night House was initially set for July 16, 2021, but was pushed back to August 20 as part of group of pandemic-related delays from its parent company Disney.
• A planned adaptation of The Nightingale was pushed back a year from December 25, 2020 to December 22, 2021, then to December 23, 2022; it would ultimately be removed from the release schedule entirely.
• The Bob Odenkirk thriller Nobody was pushed back from August 14, 2020 to February 26, 2021, which also unseated M. Night Shyamalan's latest film, Old, which was originally meant for that date. Old later moved to July 23. Nobody itself then moved to April 2nd, then finally to March 26th to get the jump on Godzilla vs. Kong.
• No Time to Die, after having already been delayed twice, was initially pushed from April 8, 2020 to the traditional November Bond release date (November 12 for the U.K. and November 25 (later November 20) for the U.S.) — making it the first "tentpole" movie of the pandemic era to change its dates — before being pushed again to April 2, 2021 and then to October 8 as it became clear the U.K. and U.S. markets wouldn't be ready for it. (Supposedly the studio offered the film to streaming services but asked for too much money.) This led to an astonishing 20-month release gap between the film and its Billie Eilish theme song, which launched in February 2020 and won a Grammy in the interim. And what’s more, the song was still eligible for an Oscar the next year when the film was actually released, based on the rules in the Best Original Song category - which Eilish won.
• Nomadland was initially intended to begin a limited release on December 4th, 2020 and expand from there. It technically met that date via a one-week virtual release, but did not hit theaters until January 29th (as an IMAX exclusive) due to the pandemic. It then premiered in general theaters and on Hulu on February 19th.
• Old was moved to July 23, 2021, from a February 26, 2021 release date.
• The One and Only Ivan was pulled from its original August 14, 2020 theatrical release date and was made a Disney+ release instead, releasing a week later on August 21.
• OSS 117: From Africa with Love was due to come out in France on February 3, 2021. Due to the lockdown being prolonged past that date, the release was moved to April 14, then again to August 4.
• The Personal History of David Copperfield, like the rest of Disney's May slate of movies, was delayed indefinitely from its original planned US release date of May 8, 2020 and was later rescheduled for August 14, and then later pushed back two further weeks to August 28, where it was ultimately released.
• Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway was supposed to arrive on April 3, 2020 to capitalize on the Easter holiday period, but the outbreak pushed back its release to August 7. On March 30, it was moved again to January 15, 2021, and then pushed further back to June 11. Following the announcement that New York City would reopen theaters, it was moved forward slightly to May 14, but it then moved back to July 2 after Minions: The Rise of Gru vacated the date. And then it jumped forward to June 18, and then back to June 11 to distance itself from Luca and The Boss Baby: Family Business. It also released much earlier in various overseas territories.
• Praise This was unseated from its original September 25, 2020 release date due to Candyman's ultimately multiple pushbacks and ended up quietly released on Peacock over two-and-a-half years later on April 7, 2023.
• Promising Young Woman was pulled from its original April 17, 2020 release date and eventually re-dated for December 25th.
• A Quiet Place Part II changed dates many times. Originally announced for a May 15, 2020 release, it was initially pulled forward to March 19 (in the United Kingdom and Australia) and the following day in North America, with a world premiere being held on March 8. And then four days later the movie got indefinitely delayed as the overarching effects of the pandemic became clearer. The film was later redated for September 4, but after cases spiked again, it was pushed to April 23, 2021. It was pushed back further to September 17 in the wake of both another spike in cases in the United States and the country's slower-than-expected vaccine rollout (which were responsible for most of the spring-to-fall shifts in general). And then it was suddenly shifted earlier to May 28, in the wake of New York City reopening movie theaters and the announcement that the film would release on Paramount+ 45 days after opening theatrically.
• Reminiscence was originally scheduled for April 16, 2021, but was pushed back to September 3 to make room for Mortal Kombat. It was later pushed forward one week to August 27 to avoid a head-to-head matchup with Shang-Chi, then a week earlier on August 20.
• Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City was delayed from September 24, 2021 to November 24, 2021 after the former slot was taken by the below-mentioned Venom: Let There Be Carnage.
• Run was pulled from its original May 8, 2020 release date and later sold off to Hulu for a November 20 release.
• Run Sweetheart Run premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival and was scheduled for release on May 8, 2020. It was delayed indefinitely due to the pandemic, before being sold to Amazon Studios, which sat the movie on The Shelf of Movie Languishment for over two years before eventually dating it for October 28, 2022.
• Saint Maud was pulled from its original April 10, 2020 release date and later rescheduled to July 17, then later pulled again when another surge of COVID-19 cases delayed the reopening of theaters. The film then became a joint A24/Epix release and began a limited theatrical debut on January 29th, then premiered on Epix February 12th.
• The Sylvester Stallone-starring superhero drama Samaritan was initially slated for November 20, 2020, then was pushed back to December 11 and later June 4, 2021. It remained on the latter date until a schedule change at the very last minute, with no marketing of any kind having been released. It was eventually rescheduled for over a year later, on August 26, 2022.
• Disney+'s Secret Society of Second-Born Royals was initially scheduled to premiere on July 17, 2020, as the streamer's big summer film release. However, it was pushed back to September 25 after several of Disney's theatrical films (including the aforementioned Artemis Fowl, The One and Only Ivan, and Hamilton) were shifted to the service due to the pandemic closing down theatres.
• Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins was pushed back from October 23, 2020 to sometime in October 22, 2021. It was then moved forward to July 23 to replace Top Gun: Maverick as Paramount's big summer release.
• The Japanese release of Sonic The Hedgehog was shelved and moved back from March 27 to June 26, 2020. The Chinese release was also pulled from its original February 28 release and later moved to July 31.
• Sony's Spider-Man Universe:
  • Morbius was pushed back from July 31, 2020 to March 19, 2021, then to October 8, then to January 21, 2022, before settling on January 28. Notably, this meant that the film, originally planned to be the second, will be the third released film in the SSMU, after the sequel to Venom (see below). And then it was delayed again after tickets had already gone on sale for the January date, this time to April 1, 2022.
  • Venom: Let There Be Carnage was pushed back from October 2, 2020 to June 25, 2021. Its title was revealed on the day that the delay was announced. It then later received a second delay to September 17, and a third delay to September 24, then a fourth to October 15. Then it was moved up two weeks to October 1 in response to the successful opening weekend of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.
• Bollywood film Sooryavanshi, part of Rohit Shetty's shared "Cop Universe", was delayed from its March 24th, 2020 release date and was set to premiere during the Diwali holiday of the same year. It later got postponed again to 2021.
• Spell was pulled from its original August 28, 2020 release date, then made into a VOD release on October 30.
• Spiral was rescheduled from May 15, 2020 to May 21, 2021, then pulled forward one week to May 14.
• Star Wars: A planned Rogue Squadron film was pushed back from December 16, 2022 to December 22, 2023, but would ultimately be removed from the schedule.
• Tenet did not budge for a long while, until was pushed back from July 17 to July 31, 2020, then to August 12, 2020, then being delayed indefinitely as a new release strategy was plotted. Ultimately, Warner Bros released TENET in international countries (including Canada) on August 26, with the US release starting out in areas where indoor theaters are open on September 3rd (and early previews beginning August 31st).
• Tom and Jerry was pushed back from December 23, 2020 to March 5, 2021, then moved up to February 26 of that year with a simultaneous debut on HBO Max.
• The Tomorrow War was pulled from its original December 25, 2020 release date and later moved to July 23, 2021. After being sold to Amazon Studios, it was shifted forward to July 2.
• After a long period of Development Hell, Top Gun: Maverick was initially dated for July 12, 2019, but was then delayed to June 26 (later June 24), 2020. Once COVID hit, the film was moved from June 24 to December 23, 2020, then later moved again to July 2, 2021. It was then moved to November 19, unseating fellow Tom Cruise picture Mission: Impossible 7, then shifted even further to May 27, 2022, again replacing Mission: Impossible.
• Right-wing provocateur Dinesh D'Souza's anti-Democratic Party documentary Trump Card canceled its August 7th theatrical release (ahead of the Democratic and Republican National Conventions) and announced a digital release in October, in advance of the U.S. presidential election.
• The Truth (La Vérité), Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda's first film not in his native language, was pulled from its original US release date in March to sometime in summer 2020.
• Ultraman Taiga The Movie: New Generation Climax moved from March 6th, 2020 to August 7th of the same year. Shin Ultraman was hit by the same fate, where it's delayed from summer 2021 to May 13, 2022.
• The Uncharted film adaptation was moved from March 5 to October 8, 2021; then moved earlier to July 16 as it swapped places with a Spider-Man film — then moved all the way to February 11, 2022.
• A notable example is the Russell Crowe thriller Unhinged (2020), the first film from upstart distributor Solstice Studios, which had initially been set for August 28th (later September 4th). After the pandemic struck and summer releases evacuated the schedule, however, the film was suddenly shifted forward to July 1st, two weeks before Tenet, in the hopes of being the first new theatrical release as theaters reopened. As the pandemic in America failed to die down, the film made incremental date changes back into August, generally accompanying TENET's own release shifts. It ultimately opened on August 21st, the date most major theater chains in America marked for reopening come hell or high water, still two weeks before TENET and just a week before its original release date. The film also began its international release on July 16th and released in Canada on August 14th.
• The Robert De Niro/Oakes Fegley family comedy The War With Grandpa had already been a victim of The Weinstein Company's meltdown in the wake of Harvey Weinstein's sexual assault charges. Originally filmed in 2017 and scheduled for release in February 2018, it was pushed back to April, then October, before the producers reclaimed the rights to the film from the company. The rights were eventually picked up in June 2020 by 101 Studios (who had previously released fellow Weinstein refugee The Current War) and scheduled for September 2020; it was then pushed back to October 9th to avoid the early slate of COVID-delayed movies, but held firm on that (theatrical) date even after Wonder Woman 1984 and others were pushed back even further.
• The Steven Spielberg version of West Side Story was moved back a year from December 18, 2020 to December 10, 2021.
• The long-gestating film adaptation of Wicked, a release that Universal had already been pushed back 2 years in favor of focusing on the infamous adaptation of Cats, was unseated from its December 22, 2021 release by Sing 2; no rescheduled date was announced until April 2022, when it announced the first part would release on December 25, 2024, and the second part an exact year after.
• Willy's Wonderland was originally meant to be released on October 30th, 2020, but was delayed to February 12th, 2021. A poster for the movie lampshades the delay by featuring the text "2020 Isn't Over Yet Kids."
• The Witches was pulled from its original October 9, 2020 release date before moving from a theatrical release to a release on HBO Max on October 22 in the US, while it premiered in theaters internationally.
• Without Remorse was pushed back from September 20, 2020 to October 2, then to February 26, 2021, and then sold off to Prime Video to be released on April 30, 2021.
• The Woman in the Window was set to release October 4, 2019, but disastrous test screenings left audiences confused, so it was pushed back to May 2020 as 20th Century Studios put it through reshoots. Then, it was delayed indefinitely from its original planned release date of May 15. Ultimately, Netflix picked up the film for a release on May 14, 2021, almost exactly a year after its intended theatrical date.

Literature

• The first phase of the Star Wars: The High Republic project was delayed from its original Summer/Fall 2020 release date to a January 2021 release.
  • Light of the Jedi: Moved from August 25 to January 5.
  • A Test of Courage: Moved from September 8 to January 5.
  • Into the Dark: Moved from October 13 to February 2.
• Travis M. Matthews announced on Twitter that his book Because He's Jeff Goldblum, the first-ever biography of the actor, would miss its announced November 10, 2020 publication date due to the pandemic causing a domino effect of books being delayed. He linked to this New York Times article on exactly how the entire industry was affected — basically, supply shortages were compounded by increased demand for print books due to so many people needing anything to read during the lockdown. Matthews's book was rescheduled for May 2021.
• Rowley Jefferson's Awesome Friendly Adventure was originally scheduled for April 7, 2020 but was delayed to August 4. The author explained that, due to the closure of many bookstores, he didn't feel like it was good to release the book at that moment.
• Amongst several Doctor Who books postponed were novelisations of the new series episodes "Dalek," "The Crimson Horror" and "The Witchfinders," plus a rewritten version of the 1996 TV movie novelisation and Retraux reissues of several other novelisations (moved from July 2020 to March 2021), and a new memoir by Tom Baker (postponed indefinitely from September 2020).

Live-Action TV

• The Amazing Race Season 32 had already sat on The Shelf of Movie Languishment for over a year and was finally set to air in spring 2020 when CBS delayed it one more time in order to fill pandemic-related gaps in the fall schedule (specifically the loss of Survivor). Season 33 had also started filming in Europe in February 2020, but production was stopped and everyone was sent home; they eventually picked up where they left off over a year later, with new safety protocols and a new route plotted. They'd also began casting for season 34 with plans to shoot over the summer when 33 got halted.
• The CW:
  • Episodes of the Arrowverse (Legends of Tomorrow, The Flash, Supergirl, and Batwoman) were postponed and replaced with reruns. Stargirl was also pushed back a week on both of its platforms from May 11 and 12 to 18 and 19. After the shutdown was extended, The Flash, Supergirl, and Batwoman were unable to shoot their season finales, causing these series to end their respective seasons (6, 5, and 1, respectively) on a sour note. The pandemic also meant all crossover plans for the 2020-21 season were scrapped/delayed; a planned Batwoman / Superman & Lois crossover was pushed ahead to 2021-22.
  • Legacies ran out of completed episodes, prompting the network to move the start of the new season of In the Dark from May 28 to April 16.
  • The final season of Supernatural also ran out of finished episodes after the thirteenth, forcing an extended hiatus. The final seven episodes ran as part of the 2020-21 season instead.
  • Nearly all of the network's scripted programming had their fall 2020 premiere pushed back to after Christmas, because filming only restarted in fall and they had no episodes ready to air. The Outpost, Pandora, and Supernatural were the only ones that managed to avoid delay, because their filming had mostly^note The Grand Finale of Supernatural was significantly scaled down because it was filmed after lockdown done before the lockdown was imposed.
• Defending The Guilty was renewed for Series 2, then filming got delayed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Not all of the cast were available, so it got cancelled.
• The series finale of Empire was originally scheduled to air as episode 20 on May 5, however, the production shutdown caused the final two episodes to be scrapped, making the April 21 episode the series finale, utilizing footage from the unfinished episodes.
• Season 2 of Euphoria had just started shooting when filming was shut down due to the pandemic. Filming got delayed by so much that it created the "bridge" episodes, "Rue" and "Jules," which could shoot with much smaller casts.
• The Eurovision Song Contest 2020 was canceled, marking the first time in its 65-year history that the contest did not take place on schedule. Many artists selected for the 2020 event returned for 2021, but were forced to submit new material per established Eurovision rules. A special broadcast, titled Eurovision: Europe Shine a Light, aired in place of the contest to honor the artists and songs for that year. The 2021 contest returned to Rotterdam, intended host for 2020, with alterations to the proceedings such as a reduced live audience and having every artist pre-tape a performance in case they couldn't perform live. Australia had to use this option due to travel restrictions preventing their act from entering Europe. Iceland were also unable to perform live due to exposure to the virus but they used a recording of their rehearsal for the semi-final instead of the pre-tape.
  • The Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2020, went on as planned, but with a significantly reduced number of participating countries from the previous year, and safety precautions that include no studio audience in host city Warsaw with performances filmed remotely from the respective country, with similar studios and the same equipment.
• The Good Fight was supposed to have two extra episodes (to have the normal number in the season), but was one of the first shows to shut down due to being filmed in New York City. As a result, it ended two weeks earlier than expected, and was very delayed in the UK.
• The 2020 Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards, originally scheduled for Sunday, March 22, 2020, were postponed, along with lead-in event SlimeFest. This also prompted the series finale of Henry Danger to move one night sooner and return to the show's usual Saturday timeslot, as it no longer had such an event to lead into. The Kids Choice Awards were eventually moved to May 2, 2020, and was done digitally.
  • Similarly, the 2020 edition of the iHeartRadio Music Awards were cancelled entirely. On March 12th, the night they were originally scheduled to air, Fox instead showed the iHeart Living Room Concert for America. On August 24th, iHeartMedia announced that the show was cancelled entirely with awards being announced on the air on all of the radio stations during Labor Day Weekend.
  • Many other awards show got affected in the same way as the Kid's Choice Awards. The Academy of Country Music Awards for 2020 were delayed from April 5 to September 16 and the Billboard Music Awards also got delayed from April 29 to October 14. Events in 2021 faced similar delays with the 2021 Golden Globes delayed from January to the end of February, the 2021 Grammy Awards delayed from January 31 to March 14, the 2021 Screen Actors' Guild Awards from January 24 to March 14, and even the Academy Awards for 2021 delayed from February 28 to April 25.
• With sports fans finding themselves without any major live sporting events to watch, ESPN decided to move up the first two episodes of The Last Dance, a 10-part documentary miniseries on Michael Jordan's final championship season with the Chicago Bulls, from June 2 to April 19 (April 20 on Netflix outside the U.S.), with each subsequent pair of episodes released each Sunday (Monday) up to and including May 17 (May 18).
• Netflix released many new shows during the quarantine with only the original audio, alongside the message "No dub available yet— the health of the voice actors is a priority".
• Production on the second episode/special in series 4 of Prime Video's The Grand Tour, titled A Massive Hunt, was completed before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, but editing and post-production wasn't. It ended up being delayed as producer Andy Wilman got infected with COVID-19. Eventually, it was announced that A Massive Hunt would be released on 18 December 2020, just over a year after the first series 4 episode/special Seamen was released (13 December 2019).
• Toei's live-action series on Super Hero Time, Kamen Rider Zero-One and Mashin Sentai Kiramager, had to halt production back in March when one of Kiramger's main actors was found to be infected with COVID-19. As such, both stopped airing episodes after the May 10th airing, with production only resuming on June 1. New episodes for both series restarted on June 26 after six weeks of Directors Cuts and Clip Shows. The Movie double-feature for both series also got delayed from their July 23, 2020 opening and split up for separate releases; Zero-One's was released in December after the show had ended and Kiramager's in February 2021.
• Multiple Indian drama series, such as Kumkum Bhagya, Baalveer Returns, and Tenali Rama, were forced to stop filming in March 2020 in the wake of the outbreak and temporarily stopped airing new episodes as a result. The series eventually got back to filming under new health guidelines, and most of them resumed airing new episodes on July 13th.
• The extended RuPaul's Drag Race franchise was affected in various ways:
  • The twelfth season of the flagship series was mostly completed by the time the pandemic hit hard in the United States and more or less aired without disturbance, but they weren't able to film their usual grand finale with an audience and thusly had to rely on a finale (as well as a reunion) filmed remotely from everybody's homes. A later Halloween reunion special was also filmed this way.
  • The second season of RuPaul's Drag Race UK was forced to shut down production right as the pandemic hit the United Kingdom, failing to meet its projected Fall 2020 premiere. In November 2020, it was announced that the delayed second season would air in early 2021 after re-entering production, while a third season was confirmed for the same year. Veronica Green, a contestant from the second season who couldn't return to film due to a positive COVID diagnosis, would later be re-cast in the third season, which filmed without disturbance. A documentary special, titled Queens on Lockdown, that followed each of the season two contestants during the height of the pandemic was released after the episode wherein the emergence of COVID was revealed to the queens.
  • All Stars 5 and the first season of Canada's Drag Race however, avoided delays in their production cycles (they both completed filming long before the pandemic became a global concern) and thusly aired without disturbance, although the All Stars 5 promotional photoshoot (typically filmed closer to when a season airs) was scrapped and replaced with production pictures of the queens' entrances looks.
  • All the primary footage of RuPaul's Drag Race: Vegas Revue finished filming before the pandemic hit, but some of the cast interview segments were filmed remotely instead of in a studio (and it shows), while the revue's premature closing was acknowledged and incorporated into the season.
  • The first season of Drag Race Holland was filmed during the earlier pandemic, albeit in the summer months of 2020 after the Netherlands slowed the spread of the virus, and was thusly not delayed. The first season of Drag Race Espana similarly filmed without much disturbance despite shooting in late 2020.
  • Season 13 of the flagship series filmed during the pandemic, with a slightly smaller-than-usual cast (following extended quarantine) and little-to-no celebrity guest judges, but more or less filmed without disturbance and even managed to have a live finale, although without an audience and only consisting of RuPaul herself as well as the remaining queens. The cast reunion episode, however, was once again filmed remotely from their homes. A documentary special about the cast's struggles during the pandemic, Corona Can't Keep a Good Queen Down, was released mid-season.
  • Season 14 was the first post-pandemic season to have a completely live finale with an audience as well as an in-person cast reunion, as well as celebrity guest judges for each episode, while Season 15 was the first to remove the protective plastic panels on the judges' table since they'd been installed for Season 13.
  • All Stars 6 (filmed after Season 13) and All Stars 7 (filmed after Season 14) both proceeded without disturbance.
• International editions of Big Brother were impacted in various ways:
  • The American version of Big Brother missed its usual late June/early July start but was still announced to be happening by CBS, albeit with heightened safety measures. It was later revealed that the season, the show's 22nd overall, would be the American version's second-ever edition of All Stars and finally began airing in August 2020, following a longer-than-usual quarantine period ^note (under normal circumstances, the incoming houseguests would've already been quarantined for production reasons) for both the cast and the crew, the latter of which had never done before. Houseguests were only required to wear face coverings when entering and leaving the house, while the live evictions were filmed without a studio audience for the first time since season 10 in 2008. Host Julie Chen, however, never wore a face covering and stood twelve feet apart from the houseguests during post-eviction interviews.
  • Big Brother Brazil 20 aired before and during the pandemic without interruption, albeit with scheduling changes regarding news coverage of COVID-19.
  • Big Brother Canada 8 began airing right before the pandemic struck Canada and ultimately shut down production after nineteen days, with the planned prize money being donated to COVID-19 relief instead.
  • Big Brother Germany 13 aired before and during the pandemic without much impact, but every live show after week six was held without a studio audience.
  • Big Brother Greece 6 was scheduled to begin in March 2020 after a nine-year hiatus, but the pandemic hitting Greece right around the same time ultimately delayed the start of the season to August 2020.
  • Bigg Boss, the Indian version of Big Brother, had its various editions affected:
    • Bigg Boss Kannada 7 concluded right before the pandemic hit India. An eighth season entered pre-production in August 2020.
    • Bigg Boss Malayalam 2 began airing in January 2020 and suspended production in March 2020, just a few weeks off from their planned conclusion. The third season of the series has been projected to begin in December 2020.
    • Bigg Boss Hindi 14 was mostly unaffected by the pandemic, as it was projected to begin in 2020 Q3 anyway and was able to make safety precautions in time for production.
    • Bigg Boss Tamil 4 was planned to begin in June 2020, but was then delayed to October.
    • Bigg Boss Telugu 4 was planned to begin in June 2020, but was then delayed to September.
    • Bigg Boss Marathi 3 was planned to begin in May 2020, but was then delayed to November.
  • HaAh HaGadol (the Israeli version) aired its tenth season before and during the pandemic.
  • Big Brother Quebec (the French-language Canadian version) announced it would be returning after a decade hiatus with a celebrity edition in late 2020.
  • Big Brother Suomi 12 (the Finnish version) was mostly unaffected and met its usual late August/early September start date.
  • Való Világ 10 (an offshoot of the original Hungarian version) was mostly unaffected in time for its planned November start date.
  • Grande Fratello VIP 4 (the Italian celebrity edition) aired before and during the pandemic, though ending earlier than planned and without audiences in its live shows for the final month. Grande Fratello VIP 5 is scheduled to air another season in 2020, while Grande Fratello 17 (the next civilian edition) is planned for 2021.
  • Wielki Brat 8 (the Polish version) was mostly unaffected in time for its usual September start date.
  • Big Brother Naija 5 (the Nigerian version) aired as Big Brother Naija: Lockdown but was mostly unaffected by the pandemic.
  • The Portuguese version of Big Brother returned for a fifth season after seventeen years in May 2020. Prior to then, a brief pre-season (titled BB ZOOM) was held digitally while the cast was being quarantined and tested for COVID-19. It returned for a sixth season shortly after in September 2020.
  • El Tiempo del Descuento (a successor to the Spanish celebrity edition) aired without interruption and ended in February 2020, right before the pandemic hit Spain.
  • Big Brother Sverige 8 (the Swedish version) aired before and during the pandemic without much interruption, but they stopped introducing new houseguests midway through the season for safety reasons.
• Better Call Saul was scheduled to air its final season in 2021, but was delayed to April 2022 due to filming constraints.
• Disney+:
  • Season Two of The World According to Jeff Goldblum was announced in January 2020; according to an interview with Goldblum that summer most of "Fireworks" was shot before the U.S. lockdowns made further filming impossible since the show is dependent upon him traveling the country and interacting with people. According to a Vogue interview that October, it was set to resume filming in November, but by then lockdowns were being reintroduced in many areas due to the U.S. having a third surge of infections. Things eventually improved to the point that Season 2 premiered on November 12, 2021, though the pandemic's effects are obvious in that Goldblum only visits locations in California and Georgia in most episodes.
  • The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, the streamer's first Marvel Studios-produced show, was set to have an August premiere, but was pushed back to March 21st, 2021 since 1) it had a few days of filming left before the shutdown and 2) it was supposed to come after the release of its corresponding Marvel Cinematic Universe film Black Widow (2021), which itself was delayed (see Film — Live-Action above). The the TV show ended up preceding the movie by a month-and-a-half. This meant an Early-Bird Cameo of Contessa Valentina Allegra de Fontaine in The Stinger of Black Widow ended up appearing in her larger role for Falcon and Winter Soldier first.
  • WandaVision was supposed to premiere after The Falcon and the Winter Soldier but was moved up a few months as it was further along in production. It was first announced for December 2020 before moving to January 15, 2021.
  • Peter Jackson's documentary The Beatles: Get Back was originally set to release in theaters as a singular feature film and was pushed back from September 4, 2020 to August 27, 2021. It was later expanded into three parts and six hours, releasing instead on Disney+ from November 25-27 (one segment per day).
• The fourth season of FX's Fargo was originally intended to premiere on April 19, 2020; however, the pandemic shut down production in March with only eight episodes completed. The show eventually resumed production in August and completed in early September; the show marked a new premiere date of September 27th.
• The eighteenth series of Strictly Come Dancing saw its usual start date of early September pushed back to October and reduced from 13 weeks to nine, resulting in fewer dance couples and also losing the traditional Halloween and Blackpool specials. The only other changes were the reduction from four judges to three - due to Bruno Tonioli being unable to fly between the UK and US versions - and, after restrictions tightened a few weeks into the run, the removal of the audience to comply with social distancing (members of the production team were used instead, so the couples at least weren't performing to an empty studio).
• QI suffered an odd example due to being midway through filming when the UK lockdown happened. Eleven of sixteen episodes were recorded (the last two with no studio audience), and were brought forward from the series' usual September start to May to fill the holes in BBC Two's schedule left by the pandemic. Once restrictions loosened the remaining five episodes were filmed, and broadcast from December.
• Survivor usually films two seasons (one years' worth; fall and spring) each summer but was unable to do so in 2020, delaying Seasons 41 and 42 for a year. Season 40 itself had to adjust its finale; usually seasons conclude with a live cast reunion, but 40 instead just extended the length of the regular episode and the live reveal of the final vote was done remotely.
• Whilst comparatively lesser-hit than other shows, Would I Lie to You? usually records in the first half of the year for broadcast in the Autumn, but had to wait until restrictions had loosened enough to allow a live studio audience and the regular panelists had finished several other projects that had been affected by the pandemic, meaning it ended up recording in October for a January start. (Schedulers ended up liking the new slot, and decided to keep it for the following series.)
• Series 13 of Doctor Who was supposed to start filming in September 2020 but was pushed back two months, was cut from a planned eleven episodes to eight — which due to the pandemic became a six-episode Multi-Part Episode followed by two specials to complete the Story Arc — and premiered on Halloween 2021, to be followed by an out-of-season Grand Finale special for the Thirteenth Doctor at the end of 2022.
• PBS actually averted this with its 2020 editions of The National Memorial Day Concert which was held as scheduled on May 24th, and A Capitol Fourth which was aired as scheduled on July 4th. Both events were pre-taped as opposed to being live. PBS also held the 2021 editions as a pre-taped event due to restricted public access to the US Capitol after the January 2021 riot.
  • Similarly, NBC aired a 2020 edition of The Macy's 4th of July Fireworks Spectacular which consisted of a series of pre-taped performances and fireworks shows.
• PBS stations that had an annual spring auction for fundraising had to completely cancel the auction in the spring of 2020 over concerns from the auctions having a large number of people gather in a small space. PBS stations were led to cancel May pledge drives for the same reason. This led the US Government to give PBS a bailout as part of the first Coronavirus stimulus.
• The Walking Dead:
  • The mothership series was in the final episodes of Season 10 when the pandemic picked up during spring 2020, and lockdowns began during the final hours of post-production of the season finale "A Certain Doom." Post-production on the special effects-heavy finale was impossible to complete, and roughly a week before the airing of episode 15, "The Tower," it was announced that "A Certain Doom" was to be delayed to air until later in the year. As lockdowns began to lessen a bit as the summer went on, the last bit of post-production was able to be completed, and "A Certain Doom" eventually aired in October.
  • However, as the pandemic was clearly far from over in the United States at the time "A Certain Doom" aired, it was abundantly clear that production of the eleventh and final season could not proceed as planned. A season of the show usually is filmed between June and November of the year, and by October the pandemic was in no better shape than it was in March when "A Certain Doom" was delayed. Therefore, AMC decided to produce an extended six-episode run of Season 10, filming with precautions and a limited cast and crew on set, to fill the gap between Seasons 10 and 11 that the pandemic was creating. These six episodes are intended to be Bottle Episodes with minimal cast members in an effort to stymie spread of the virus as much as possible and to still tide fans over until whenever full-scale production of Season 11, currently slated to begin in 2022, can air.
  • First spin-off series Fear the Walking Dead had nearly completed filming of the first half of its sixth season when the pandemic hit, but production was delayed by about three weeks. The remaining half of Season 6 is set to air in spring 2021.
  • The second spin-off series The Walking Dead: World Beyond was intended to debut immediately after the airing of "A Certain Doom". But with the delay of the episode, the series was pushed back to October as well, airing immediately afterwards as originally intended.
  • The planned trilogy of films revolving around Rick Grimes was originally intended to start filming in 2020, but production was delayed, with the trilogy's release date still currently unknown.
• Turner Classic Movies' annual 31 Days of Oscar Marathon Running event (in which all the movies screened during that span were at least nominated for an Academy Award) had to push back its 2021 edition to April when the Oscars themselves were moved back from February.
• 2020 editions of The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and the Christmas in Rockefeller Center tree lighting were aired as scheduled with the Macy's Parade being a series of pre-taped segments and the tree lighting airing as a live show but without a live audience.
• The 2021 Tournament of Roses Parade was fully cancelled because of the pandemic, which led NBC to instead air a two-hour Best of the Rose Parade special for 2021.
• Friends: The Reunion, which had long been touted as a key launch priority for HBO Max as a way to highlight the perennially popular show's streaming move from Netflix to the new platform, saw its original filming date (March 23, 2020) scrapped due to the onset of COVID lockdowns; a rescheduled filming date in August was also missed, and the streaming service launched without it. The special ultimately filmed in April 2021 and premiered on May 27, the one-year anniversary of HBO Max.
• Peaky Blinders's planned Sixth Season was delayed, with production on the show first starting up again in Jaunary 2021.
• Red Dwarf: Not the show itself (Red Dwarf: The Promised Land went out at its intended date in April 2020), but a documentary which was meant air around the same time (The First Three Million Years) had to be delayed from to August due to the pandemic delaying post-production.
• Impeachment, the third season of American Crime Story, was initially set to premiere September 27, 2020, but the pandemic delayed the production just before it was set to start filming. It eventually began production in late 2020 and premiered September 7, 2021.
• Donkey Hodie:
  • According to this article, the show's winter 2021 debut got delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
  • Merchandise example: Two tie-in books, "Meet Donkey Hodie!" and "Flying Flapjacks!", had their releases (originally intended for December 14, 2021) delayed due to a paper shortage caused by the Delta variant of the coronavirus. Despite this, the back cover of the "In A Pickle!" book, which got released on time, advertises the two delayed books.

Music

• All live concerts and tours were canceled or postponed, whether by artists' choice, venues' choice, or bans on large gatherings.
• Any ensemble whose members did not live together or choose to quarantine together were unable to record except individually.
• Steven Wilson announced that his upcoming sixth studio album, The Future Bites, would be delayed to January 29, 2021 (having originally been scheduled for June 12, 2020), due to his plans of promoting the album with a large variety of multimedia material being impeded by quarantine and social distancing policies.
• Red Vox announced that their upcoming third studio album, Realign, would be delayed by an unspecified amount of time due to the pandemic impacting both the band's ability to record and pressing plants' ability to manufacture vinyl records for the album's LP release.
• A good deal of physical releases saw their release dates pushed back in recognition of social distancing policies and both brick & mortar and online retailers' decisions to cut back on non-essential stock. In particular, the organizers of Record Store Day announced that the 2020 event would be rescheduled from its original date of April 18 to a new date of June 20, before later announcing that it'd be restructured entirely into a series of three "drop days" on August 29, September 26, and October 24.
• Make Them Suffer's fourth album How to Survive a Funeral went through several release date changes, due to COVID-19 making it hard to distribute merch and physical goods. Ultimately the album released on June 19th, with some lucky fans getting their merch before its street date.
• In general, a lot of albums that weren't already in their promotion process (as in releasing singles or teasers) by the time live shows started shutting down were quietly pushed back. The main reason is that touring is the best means of promotion, and if there aren't any shows, there's no promotion. A specific example is Erra, who confirmed via Reddit that their fifth LP was slated for release for 2020 but didn't release until March 2021.
• Weezer's album Van Weezer was initially dated for May 15, 2020 to coincide with their worldwide tour with Green Day and Fall Out Boy that year, but the pandemic resulted in the tour getting postponed to 2021. By the time of its May 7, 2021 release, Weezer had already recorded and released a whole other new studio album, OK Human, in late January.
• Lorde's third studio album was on track to release some time in 2020. While her native New Zealand managed to get a hold on the virus and then keep it out better than probably any other country on Earth, it was done by implementing very strict travel restrictions. They stopped her mostly US-based production team from being able to temporarily relocate to NZ to complete it. The album wound up being delayed all the way until August 2021.
• Some music acts, faced with not being able to perform for fans for the indeterminate future, opted to move up the release of their already finished albums to tide their fanbase over until concerts resumed. For instance, Phish had planned to release their album Sigma Oasis later in 2020, but chose to put it out digitally on April 2 instead. The album did not receive a physical release until November 22, however.
• Despite being cancelled, the EBU released its traditional Eurovision Song Contest album featuring the would have been entries. It was meant to be released on 17 April, before being pushed back to 8 May, before finally being released on 15 May.
• Frank Ocean had been releasing singles throughout late 2019 and early 2020 and had been booked as Coachella's headliner for that April, which most took as a sign he was going to release a new album. However, the pandemic delayed it indefinitely since he prefers to travel to work with collaborators in person instead of doing it virtually. The album was further indefinitely delayed when his brother passed away later that summer.
• Hollywood Undead’s New Empire Vol 2, the follow-up to New Empire Vol 1, was originally intended to be released somewhere in the spring or summer. It ended up being delayed before eventually releasing on December 4th 2020.
• The Foo Fighters' album Medicine at Midnight was made in late 2019 to early 2020 and was meant to be released later that year with the accompanying "Van Tour" which would have marked the group's 25th anniversary. After the pandemic arose, the band initially announced that the tour had been postponed before canceled in May 2020, and the album's release was indefinitely delayed while they tried to sort out how to release it. Its first single, "Shame Shame", was released on November 7, 2020, to coincide with their appearance as musical guests on Saturday Night Live, with "No Son of Mine" and "Waiting on a War" being released on January 1 and 14, 2021, respectively, before the album was finally released on February 5, 2021, with the accompanying "26th Anniversary/Medicine at Midnight Tour (2021–22)" afterwards. This sadly became the final album to feature drummer Taylor Hawkins before his death in March 2022, as they were touring Peru.

Radio

• I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue was intended to return for its seventy-third series in May 2020, consisting of six episodes recorded over three different sessions. The first two episodes were recorded just two weeks before the United Kingdom went into lockdown; the remaining recordings were cancelled, then a month later the show's entire future was left in doubt when Tim Brooke-Taylor, the last of the original panellists still regularly appearing on the show, died from the virus. A tribute to Brooke-Taylor aired in place of the new episodes, followed by a selection of classic repeats from the show's history. The new series finally began in November, consisting of the two pre-lockdown episodes (the first prefaced with a short introduction from host Jack Dee thanking Tim's widow for giving permission for the episodes to be aired) followed by four remotely recorded episodes with the contributors taking part from their homes.

Sports

• Pretty much every sports league and tournament in execution was forced to stop (a few football games and a UFC event were held behind closed doors before a complete halt; the UFC still had another during the quarantine, though with only Americans given international fighters couldn't leave their countries).
• The Kentucky Derby is normally held on the first Saturday in May but the 2020 edition was delayed to September 5, 2020. That year's Preakness Stakes, normally held two weeks after the Derby, was delayed to October 5. The Belmont Stakes, normally held three weeks after the Preakness (thus falling on either the first or second Saturday of June), was also moved, but only to June 20, making it the first US Triple Crown event. This was the first time ever that the Belmont had been the opening event of the Triple Crown, and the first change in order of the Triple Crown races since 1931. Most other horse racing events were fully canceled. (The Triple Crown returned to its normal scheduling in 2021.)
• The 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games were delayed to 2021, after some committees had already threatened to boycott due to host country Japan being one of the first countries where the disease went after China. The rescheduled games still used the name "Tokyo 2020."
• The 2020 Tour de France was delayed, but only by two months.
• The NCAA was hugely affected by the pandemic:
  • When the virus became a major US public health issue in March 2020 (it had been circulating before that), many conference tournaments were in progress in basketball. Those were canceled, as well as those that hadn't started. The NCAA canceled the basketball tournament, its skiing championship in progress, and all of its remaining championship events in the 2019–20 school year. Due to the majority of Division III schools and conferences opting out of competition until spring 2021, all fall 2020 and winter 2021 championships in that division were canceled as well.
  • As for Divisions I and II, the NCAA eventually moved all of its 2020 championship events in fall sports (cross country, field hockey, football, soccer, women's (indoor) volleyball, and men's water polo) to spring 2021. The top level of college football, Division I FBS, averted the trope; the NCAA does not organize a championship at that level, and the de facto championship, the College Football Playoff, went off on schedule. Even then, three FBS teams opted out completely, and all conferences played truncated seasons, with most playing only within the conference. In Division I FCS, which has an NCAA championship event, enough schools and conferences opted out that the NCAA reduced the playoffs from the normal 24 teams to 16. Several winter 2021 championship events were reduced in size due to opt-outs, and although the 2021 D-I basketball tournaments had full fields, the NCAA moved the entire men's tournament to Indiana (with most games in Indianapolis) and the entire women's tournament to San Antonio and the surrounding region.
• The XFL, which had been resurrected after its first failed attempt nearly 20 years ago and was starting to gain some traction, had to cut their season short once the pandemic started out of welfare for its players. The league shut down on April 10 and filed for bankruptcy three days later. It has since been purchased by a group led by Dwayne Johnson, who announced a planned restart in 2022, then delaying that to 2023. The XFL restarted on the latter schedule.
• The National Hockey League decided to ignore what remained of the regular season (teams had 11 to 14 games pending) and skip to extra-long playoffs - which normally had 16 teams, from April to June, and were changed to a 24-squad postseason starting in August - with Eastern Conference teams playing in Toronto and Western Conference teams playing in Edmonton, followed by the conference finals and Stanley Cup Final in Edmonton.
  • The expansion to 24 teams was done to account for a handful of teams that still had a realistic chance of making the playoffs at the point when the season was suspended, but there were quite a few raised eyebrows at that handful including some very popular teams that bring in big TV ratings, particularly the Montreal Canadiens and Chicago Blackhawks^note who were trying to crawl back to contention after a big falloff from the dynasty that made them the darlings of the league for most of the 10s. Most fans didn't read that much into it, but it did drive jokes about rigging and an assortment of nonsensical outcomes to such a memetic level that the most surprising thing that happened was that the Tampa Bay Lightning, a team who was a consistent favorite to win the cup all season, actually did.
  • The following season also suffered a delay, only starting in January, and a severe reworking: teams were realigned and made to play the 56 regular season games only against its new division (most notably, all 7 Canadian teams were stacked together so they wouldn't need to cross the border), the first two rounds of the playoffs would also be intradivisional, and the eventual final four remaining teams would be reseeded to determine the semifinals and finals. Also, the playoffs will for the first time only end in July (shortly before the delayed Summer Olympics that would also be covered by broadcaster NBC). The season was also marred by many delayed games due to players testing positive for COVID; in the extreme case, a major outbreak within the Vancouver Canucks forced the team's shutdown for over two weeks and subsequently completing its regular season after the start of the playoffs.
• The National Basketball Association, on the other hand, chose to finish the regular season... for the 22 teams either qualified for the playoffs or on the cusp of postseason (thus cutting 8 squads), which would each play 8 games at Walt Disney World (near the city of one of the participating teams, the Orlando Magic) between July and August, to determine the qualifiers and seedings in the postseason to start a few days later.
  • The NBA's Distaff Counterpart, the WNBA, delayed its season until late July, sending all of its teams into a "bubble" in Bradenton, Florida (not far from the Tampa Bay area). The regular season was shortened from the planned 36 games to 22, followed by the league's normal eight-team playoff structure ending in mid-October.
  • The WNBA had also planned to add an in-season tournament, the Commissioner's Cup, in 2020. The Cup would instead debut in 2021.
  • The following season started late, had fewer regular season games (72), saw the Toronto Raptors playing in Florida so as to avoid the Canadian government's restrictions on border-crossing, and saw the addition of a "play-in tournament" to give an extra chance for the teams ranked 9th and 10th to get into the playoffs. Its minors, the G League, played an abridged season in the same Disney complex that lasted barely over a month.
• Major League Baseball postponed their March 26 Opening Day for two weeks, but was changed to indefinitely once the lockdowns started. Plans were made for an early July return, however, they were delayed by labor disputes regarding the number of games played and player wages. In the end, it was decided that a 60-game season would be played, beginning July 23, and teams would only play against regional opponents to limit travel. In addition, the playoffs would expand from 10 to 16 teams for the season.
• Averted with the National Football League, the other member of the "Big Four". This was largely due to the season being in the fall. However, the league's Hall of Fame Megaclass of 2020, originally set to commemorate the league's first 100 seasons, saw their induction ceremony postponed to the following year, along with the class of 2021. The following season did run into many rescheduled games as teams dealt with COVID outbreaks, including games rescheduled to the rare dates of Tuesday and Wednesday, as well as the Denver Broncos being made to play a game without any quarterbacks.
• The UEFA Champions League knockout rounds stopped in March and resumed only in August, first with the remaining games of the round of 16, and then the 8 final squads went to Portugal – as the Final had already been moved from Istanbul to Lisbon - to play the three remaining rounds, which were single games all the way. As for other UEFA competitions:
  • The Europa League had yet to start two of its round of 16 ties when things were halted. When the competition resumed, the 6 ties whose first legs had been played were completed, while the other two were reduced to one-off matches and moved to Germany. All eight survivors then traveled to Germany, where the remaining rounds were held as one-off matches. The Final was moved from Gdańsk, Poland to Cologne.
  • The Women's Champions League was also suspended in March, but unlike the men's competitions, the WCL had finished its round of 16. The Final was moved from Vienna to the Spanish Basque Country, and the quarterfinalists then moved to that region for the remaining rounds, also changed to one-off fixtures. Matches were held in Bilbao and San Sebastián, with the latter city hosting the Final.
• Also, the European Championship was delayed a year, to reduce the pressure on the public services in the affected countries and to enable the conclusion of the domestic leagues that decided not to abandon their season. The final qualifying play-offs were also delayed from March to October and November. The tournament was still called Euro 2020 though, due to the merchandise having already been made and the destruction of them caused by renaming it Euro 2021 would go against their commitment to making it a sustainable tournament.
  • As a result of the Olympic Games and European Championships being pushed back to 2021, the Women’s European Championship was pushed back a year to 2022 to avoid clashing with both events.
• Rugby union also saw its share of turmoil...
  • The 2021 Rugby World Cup (for women; World Rugby no longer uses gendered terms in marketing that competition) was postponed to 2022, with New Zealand still hosting. The "2021 World Cup" branding remained in place.
  • Both the men's and women's World Rugby Sevens Series, annual events for national sides in the sport's sevens variant, cut short their 2019–20 seasons and canceled their 2020–21 seasons entirely. The rescheduling of the Tokyo Olympics had a knock-on effect on both series because rugby sevens is an official Olympic sport. Both 2021 series had truncated seasons held entirely in calendar 2021. The Sevens Series has since been reimagined; starting in 2023–24, all events will feature men's and women's tournaments during a single weekend.
  • In England, Premiership Rugby shut down in March 2020 and didn't resume until August. Combined with changes in the sport's global calendar, this in turn led to the 2020–21 season shifting from its normal September–May schedule to November–late June.
  • In France, the Top 14 shut down at around the same time, but never restarted, with no champion being declared and no sides promoted or relegated. The 2020–21 season had a more or less normal schedule.
  • The multinational Pro14 competition involving Ireland, Italy, Scotland, South Africa, and Wales also shut down in March 2020, resuming in August. The 2020–21 season, the last for the competition under the Pro14 name, had a more normal schedule. However, it would be impacted greatly by developments south of the equator...
  • Super Rugby, which before the pandemic had involved sides from Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Argentina, and Japan, canceled its 2020 season entirely. The Japanese side had already planned to withdraw for financial reasons, and Argentina never returned. Due to international travel restrictions, Australia and New Zealand each established their own totally domestic competitions, respectively Super Rugby AU and Super Rugby Aotearoa. South Africa's four Super Rugby sides then left en masse to realign with European club rugby, replacing the country's two previous Pro14 sides in what would be renamed the United Rugby Championship. In 2021, Super Rugby AU and Super Rugby Aotearoa continued, with a crossover Super Rugby Trans-Tasman competition added after both domestic seasons ended. The 2022 season saw the return of a single league table, a rebranding as Super Rugby Pacific, and the addition of two new sides, the Fijian Drua and Moana Pasifika, the latter an Auckland-based side representing the Pacific islands as a whole (but mainly Samoa and Tonga). Even then, continuing travel restrictions mean that for at least 2022, the Drua played most of their "home" matches in Australia.
  • The annual Six Nations tournament saw one match in the penultimate round and all the matches in the final round being delayed until October. The women's tournament was similarly affected with a number of matches postponed — with some eventually cancelled^note they had no affect on the championship, since England won all of their matches — and the Under 20's equivalent had matches postponed before they were eventually cancelled.
• in tennis, the 2020 Wimbledon tournament was cancelled, marking the first time since World War II that the tournament did not take place, whilst the French Open was shifted from May/June to September/October.
• The 2021 Rugby League World Cup was postponed a year following the withdrawals of Australia and New Zealand, due to safety concerns amongst both squads.
• Golf:
  • On the men's side, only one of the four major championships, namely the PGA Championship, was held as originally scheduled in 2020. The Open Championship (aka British Open) was canceled entirely for the first time since WWII; the U.S. Open was delayed from its normal June slot to September; and the Masters was moved from April to November. Because the US-based PGA Tour then started its season in September,^note it returned to a calendar-year schedule in 2024 that meant its 2020–21 season featured six majors instead of the normal four (with all 2021 majors returning to their traditional schedules).
  • The women's schedule saw equal disruption in 2020. Ironically, while The Open Championship was the only men's major canceled in 2020, its women's counterpart (The Women's Open Championship) was the only major held on its normal schedule that year. The Evian Championship was canceled; the ANA Inspiration^*since renamed the Chevron Championship was moved from April to September; the U.S. Women's Open was moved from early June to December; and the Women's PGA Championship was moved from late June to October.
  • The Ryder Cup, an event held every two years that features men's sides representing the USA and Europe, was postponed from 2020 to 2021. As a result, subsequent Ryder Cups have been played in odd-numbered years.^note Incidentally, this returned the Ryder Cup to its historic schedule; the event had been held in odd-numbered years from its creation in 1927 until 9/11 forced the planned 2001 edition to be moved to 2002.
  • This had knock-on effects on the Ryder Cup's women's equivalent, the Solheim Cup. The 2021 edition was held as scheduled. In 2023, both events were played in the same year for the first time since 2002 (thanks to 9/11); the Solheim Cup returned to its original schedule of even-numbered years starting in 2024.^note (The Solheim Cup, first played in 1990, switched to odd-numbered years after 2002.)

Tabletop Games

• Games Workshop didn't release any new model or book for months. The online store and the factory were both closed in mid-March, the former was reopened in mid-May and the latter only at the end of the month, with the first wave of new products becoming available for preorder on May 30.
  • As a side result, issues of White Dwarf in the last few months ended up to speak of yet unreleased models as they were already out: the March issue mentions the new Ragnar Blackmane model (original release planned for the same day the WD issue came out, released in mid May) and the Warhammer Quest: Blackstone Fortress Zoat (originally planned to be released a week after the issue came out, got released only on June 20), the April issue (which was released in time in digital format but the physical release got out only a month later) mentions the Aeronautica Imperialis: Skies of Fire set as "recently released" (it got released only on June 13) and the May issue (which was released only in late June) mentions the new Lumineth Realmlords army for Warhammer: Age of Sigmar as if the entire range of new models was already available in stores (the issue came out the same day as the faction's limited release Army Set, with no news on when the actual range will be out)

Theatre

• The first New York City stop of Baby Shark Live was postponed.
• Charlie and the Chocolate Factory's North American tour had to postpone many of its 2020-21 stops starting with the St. Louis engagement slated for March. It finally relaunched in October 2021. As well, several international productions were either shut down or forced to postpone their openings.
• All Cirque du Soleil productions, including Blue Man Group shows, were shut down and three new shows had to postpone their world premieres (Walt Disney World resident show Drawn to Life, Berlin resident show NYSA, and the tour Under the Same Sky). By the end of June, with only the Chinese resident show X (The Land of Fantasy) managing to reopen, the company filed for bankruptcy protection and laid off the bulk of its performers. The following year reopenings began, but there were permanent casualties — Zumanity, the Orlando company of Blue Man Group, and AXEL did not reopen, while NYSA and Under the Same Sky were cancelled — and productions required performers to be masked as often as possible.
  • Joya reopened April 27, 2021.
  • Corteo relaunched its European tour June 10.
  • The Las Vegas company of Blue Man Group reopened June 24; the Chicago company followed August 18 and New York City's September 3.
  • Mystère reopened June 28 (and had a 10-year extension to its contract announced).
  • "O" reopened July 4.
  • Michael Jackson: ONE reopened August 19.
  • The Beatles Love reopened August 26.
  • Crystal relaunched its European tour September 22.
  • The revival of Alegría relaunched its North American tour November 13.
  • Drawn to Life premiered November 18.
  • KÀ reopened November 24.
  • Kurios Cabinet Des Curiosites relaunched its European tour March 16, 2022.
• The last two tour stops of Nick Jr. Live! Move To The Music's 2019-2020 run in Boston, Massachusetts, and New York City was postponed. Oddly enough, ads for the canceled show appeared on various websites (including This Very Wiki) days after the cancellation occurred.
• The Dolby Theater run of The SpongeBob Musical in Los Angeles had its premiere delayed until April.
• Several Broadway openings were delayed due to New York laws closing Broadway, and eventually all live theater venues, starting on April 12. Originally opening nights were pushed back to the following April, but with the pandemic substantially worse by the turn of 2021 and vaccine rollouts slower than expected, the shutdown was extended through the summer and some shows were thus pushed further back. From there, the Omicron variant that swept the U.S. at the end of the year resulted in many shows being forced to take breaks due to cast/crew falling ill.
  • The official opening night of Six didn't take place because that day — March 12, 2020 — theatre shutdowns began. It finally opened October 3, 2021.
  • A revival of Neil Simon's Plaza Suite starring Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick was pushed from a March 13, 2020 opening to March 19, 2021, then to March 28, 2022.
  • The Michael Jackson biographical musical MJ: The Musical was postponed from an August 2020 opening night to open on April 15, 2021, but then pushed back to September and then to February 1, 2022.
  • A revival of The Music Man starring Hugh Jackman was postponed from its October 15, 2020 opening first to April 7, 2021, and then to February 10, 2022.
  • All 2020 Roundabout Theater Company productions were postponed to 2021, including the revivals of 1776 and Caroline, Or Change (the latter to October 27).
  • Already-running musicals Frozen, Mean Girls, and a revival of West Side Story were permanently closed in the wake of the shutdown. Jagged Little Pill and Waitress reopened but closed for good in December 2021 due to the Omicron variant's impact. On the other hand, Beetlejuice, which looked to be shut down for good to make way for the revival of The Music Man prior to the pandemic, reopened at another theater in Spring 2022.
  • Harry Potter and the Cursed Child reopened, albeit condensed from the original two-part production to one.
• London's West End saw its own run of changes:
  • Andrew Lloyd Webber's Cinderella, originally scheduled for August 2020, was pushed back to May 19, 2021, and then to July 20 — only to announce on the 18th that it would be pushed back indefinitely due to a performer testing positive for the virus. Ironically, this announcement came on "Freedom Day" when all mask, capacity, etc. restrictions were lifted in England; it finally opened August 18th.
  • A limited-run revival of Good toplining David Tennant was supposed to open October 6, 2020 but was pushed back to April 21, 2021.
  • The U.K. premiere of Frozen was delayed to Fall 2021.
• The Crazy Horse Paris shows of the 2020-2021 season were pushed back to October 2021.

Theme Parks

• Disney Theme Parks:
  • Florida's Walt Disney World Resort:
    • Epcot’s renovation saw huge pandemic-related delays. The France pavilion expansion and its Ratatouille ride were meant to open Summer 2020, only for the park to be shut down that March. The pavilion itself opened a year later in February 2021 while its next door neighbor, the Morocco pavilion, had its bathrooms redone, but the ride’s opening was repurposed to kick off the 50th anniversary celebration of the resort on October 1st. The Guardians of the Galaxy roller coaster and Play! pavilion missed their intended Summer 2021 dates — the former opened in late Spring 2022 instead. A Moana walkthrough attraction was similarly delayed, and four previously announced plans — Wondrous China (a new Circle-Vision 360 film), the fourth update of Spaceship Earth, an all-new Mary Poppins attraction for the U.K. pavilion, and a "Festival Pavilion" to serve as a new hub for the park's annual themed festivals — were indefinitely postponed. A DuckTales (2017) themed overlay for World Showcase Adventure was delayed from its 2020 opening date, and didn't open until December 2022, giving its source show time to get cancelled, end production, air its final episode.
    • The TRON coaster at Magic Kingdom missed its Summer 2021 opening as well and had the knock-on effect of delaying the reopening of the Walt Disney World Railroad since it had to be shut down to allow for the coaster's construction. It eventually opened in the spring of 2023.
    • As noted above under Theatre Cirque du Soleil's new Disney Springs show Drawn to Life, which was far enough in production to release a teaser trailer with actual performance footage, was postponed just as previews were supposed to start in March 2020. Over a year later it finally announced a new premiere date of November 18, 2021, allowing it to tie in to the 50th anniversary of the resort.
  • The California Disneyland Resort ended up staying closed through late April 2021 (and cancelled the 65th anniversary Milestone Celebration of 2020). The Avengers Campus area at California Adventure was supposed to open in Summer 2020, but Disney announced it wouldn’t open until capacity increased, which amounted to roughly a year’s delay; a June 4th, 2021 opening date was eventually confirmed.
  • Tokyo Disneyland Resort:
    • The Beauty and the Beast mini-area and ride were ready to open when the park closed in March 2020. While the park reopened in July the company that owns the resort, Oriental Land Company, waited to open the area unitl capacity increased that September.
    • The Fantasy Spring expansion at DisneySea park was originally targeting a 2022 opening but the pandemic delayed it first to 2023 before slipping again into spring 2024.
  • Every bit of the extensive renovation to the Disney Studios park in Paris was delayed by somewhere between a year and a year and a half. The first major project, Avengers Campus, opened in mid-2022.
• Universal Studios:
  • The new park in Florida, Epic Universe, was supposed to open in late 2023 but after construction was halted for a year due to the pandemic, it’s now opening "by summer 2025".
  • Averted with the Jurassic World VelociCoaster at Islands of Adventure. While construction was paused due to the pandemic Universal never officially announced the attraction's impending arrival until late September 2020, and the official opening date of June 10, 2021 wasn't revealed until that April.
  • Super Nintendo World in Universal Studios Japan was originally scheduled to open in summer 2020, but got pushed to February 2021, which that got delayed by a month due to an uptick of cases in the Osaka area, but finally opened operating under the park's limited capacity.
• Cedar Point Amusement Park in Sandusky, Ohio delayed its sesquicentennial celebrations that had been scheduled for 2020, to 2021, along with fully canceling 2020's Halloweekend fall weekends.

Toys

• The release date of the Healing Bag toy for Healin' Good♡Pretty Cure was changed from mid-March to the end of April because of the virus impacting the production of the product, which was made in China.
• The release of toys of the Child (later named Grogu) for The Mandalorian was delayed because they are manufactured in China.
• The Jujutsutchi, a Tamagotchi Nano model based on Jujutsu Kaisen, was meant to release in December 2021, but was pushed back to January 2022. The Nano models are manufactured in Vietnam, where a large amount of coronavirus cases had stopped them.

Video Games

• The special edition Nintendo Switch for Animal Crossing: New Horizons had its production delayed because the system was manufactured in China, where the pandemic originated. However, New Horizons itself was still released on time.
• Hamster Corporation announced that its Arcade Archives series may be disrupted by the quarantine and by the suspension of CERO (below), though it intends to reshuffle its release plans and keep its streak of releasing one classic arcade game every week going as long as possible.
• The Japanese ratings board CERO suspended its activities for a month. As all games need to receive a CERO rating before they can be released in the region, this will have an effect on games not yet rated.
• Cyberpunk 2077 originally had an April 16th, 2020 release date, but, as a result of the ongoing pandemic, was moved up to September 17th, and then moved further up to December 10th to polish the game for all next-gen and current consoles, and to work on integrating the multi-player.
• While Doom Eternal was officially released on its intended date of March 20th. GameStop sold physical console copies of the game a day earlier in the US to separate the DOOM Eternal crowd from the Animal Crossing: New Horizons crowd.
• After fifteen uninterrupted editions between its 1995 debut and 2019, the Electronic Entertainment Expo had its 2020 edition canceled due to concerns over the pandemic. The Entertainment Software Association attempted to reconfigure the conference to an exclusively online format for 2020 before announcing that they would not be doing that either; a physical event was still planned for E3 2021, until plans fell through and the ESA opted to move forward with an online show in its stead on June 12, with the physical show being pushed back again till 2022... until rising cases again called for its cancellation as a precaution with another digital show in its stead. Eventually, plans for the 2022 show fell through with the show being pushed again to June 2023. Then, the 2023 show was canceled in late March 2023 after presenters backed out, which would lead to E3's permanent cancellation that December.
• Evil Genius 2, originally set to be released in 2020, was pushed back to the first half of 2021.
• Final Fantasy XIV's 5.3 patch was due to come out in mid-June, but the worldwide lockdowns impacted the development team's ability to work on it, delaying it by around two months. The game's forth expansion, Endwalker, was also delayed until the end of November 2021.
• Five Nights at Freddy's: Security Breach was delayed by a full year. Its originally announced release window was Q4 2020. It is currently slated for release on December 16, 2021.
• Gran Turismo 7 was pushed from late 2021 to March 4, 2022.
• Guilty Gear -STRIVE- release date was delayed to early 2021.
• Halo Infinite was delayed from Holiday 2020 to 2021.
• Iron Man VR for the PlayStation 4 was delayed from its May 15 date due to the virus making logistics difficult, preventing Sony from giving the game a proper launch release. It was later given a July 3, 2020 date.
• Kerbal Space Program 2 was pushed back from the 2021 fiscal year (April 2020 - March 2021) to Fall 2021.
• Kingdom Hearts Dark Road was originally slated for a Spring 2020 release, but production was delayed.
• After being delayed to May 29, 2020 in order to properly finish development, The Last of Us Part II went on indefinite hiatus on April 2, 2020, after being caught flat-footed by the pandemic. The game was almost finished when it was delayed but having the team work from home slowed the process down and they needed time to weigh how they were going to market and distribute it. However before the month was out, the game suffered a massive Content Leak that put out roughly two hours of content (which included the huge spoiler that Joel dies) out onto the internet. After that, it was released on June 19th for damage control.
• The Life Is Strange: Remastered Collection was originally targeting a Fall 2021 release alongside the brand-new Life Is Strange: True Colors. But due to the pandemic, the development team was given more time, moving the release date to Early 2022, while retaining the September 2021 release for True Colors.
• Mafia: Definitive Edition was pushed back from August 28 to September 25, which presented challenges during the game's late stages of development. Recording the iconic main theme had to be done by conducting several sessions with their orchestra, with select members performing their pieces in order to comply with social distancing protocols. Ironically enough, the final release date coincided with Tommy Angelo's death in-universe.
• Ninjala was originally scheduled for release in late May 2020, but it was pushed back to late June. There was a silver lining to this delay: Having suffered serious server issues with an open beta in April, Gungho Entertainment scheduled a second open beta during this period to much better results.
• The Nintendo Switch version of The Outer Worlds was scheduled to release on March 6, 2020, but got hit with a delay as the porting studio was located in China, and thus had to close its offices temporary. At the end of March, it was given a new release date of June 5, 2020.
• The HD Updated Re-release of Star Wars Episode I: Racer was delayed from its planned May release to June 23 due to the pandemic impacting development.
• Tales of Arise was originally going to be released on an unspecified date in 2020. However, the pandemic caused it to delayed to September 10, 2021 instead.
• The official Western release of the TurboGrafx-16 Mini was delayed from its March 15th launch because the manufacturing and shipping facilities were located in China; nevertheless, Konami managed to stealth-release this American model exclusively on Amazon's Japanese storefront (which ships worldwide) and send out review units to Western critics. Its Japanese counterpart, the PC Engine Mini, was able to make its intended official release date of March 19.
• Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 was pushed back from 2020 to 2021.
• The eighth expansion of World of Warcraft, Shadowlands, has been moved from its original October 27, 2020 release date due to both Blizzard Entertainment's teams needing more time as they work from home and the expansion being one of the most complex ones they've ever created. It will come out in either November or December instead. It is the first Release Date Change to ever hit WoW in its 16 years of existence.

Western Animation

• The eleventh season of FXX’s Archer was delayed from its May 6 premiere date to September 16.
• Elena of Avalor episodes after "Sweetheart's Day" were pushed back due to the pandemic hindering production.
• Transformers: War for Cybertron Trilogy had its Netflix release delayed from June to July 31st, 2020 due to the pandemic hindering the production of the show's foreign dubs (Netflix usually waits to have the foreign dubs of their shows produced so that they can give them a simultaneous worldwide release).
• Jorel's Brother always has long Series Hiatus, but the longest one was from the third season's finale (June 24, 2019) to the fourth season's premiere (April 1, 2021). Season 4 was originally set to air in mid-2020, but the pandemic delayed production, forcing the team to finish the episodes from home.
• Kid Cosmic: Craig McCracken said how the show was going to come out in 2020, but the COVID-19 pandemic delayed production, and it came out in February 2021.
• SpongeBob SquarePants: The episode "Kwarantined Krab", despite being produced before the pandemic started, was delayed for years due to the relative insensitivity of airing a quarantine-themed episode when a lot of people are genuinely struggling (not helped by SpongeBob's line, "A quarantine is like a mandatory sleepover, and we're all invited!"). It wasn't released on the season 12 DVD, and was the last episode of the season to premiere on television, on April 29, 2022.
• Villainous (Cartoon Network) was set to air its first season in late 2020 but ended up getting pushed back a whole year, with its English dub taking another year to air and replacing a majority of the cast sans Black Hat and 505.

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