Disney’s Raya And The Last Dragon Release Date Pushed Back

The Walt Disney Company has once again made major changes to its feature film release calendar, shifting a number of movies into different release dates and pushing some back well into next year. Among those that was delayed was Raya and The Last Dragon, the new movie from Disney Animation Studios. Raya was previously scheduled to debut on November 25 of this year and has now been delayed until March 12 of 2021. Other films that were delayed this time by Disney is Pixar’s upcoming movie Soul, which was set for June 19 and has been pushed to November 20. In addition an “Untitled Disney Live Action” movie was scheduled for March 12, 2021 and has now been removed from the scheduled entirely.

Raya and The Last Dragon was officially announced at least year’s D23 Expo by Disney Animation Studios. Animation veterans Paul Briggs & Dean Wellins will direct the film, marking the directorial debut for the pair. Both have an extensive history in animation with Briggs working as “Head of Story” on Big Hero 6 and Frozen, and Wellins working as a story artist on Moana and Zootopia, plus serving as supervising animator on The Iron Giant.

Crazy Rich Asians screenwriter Adele Lim will pen the script fo the film which was previously revealed to be inspired by Southeast Asian cultures including Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Indonesia, Laos, and Malaysia. Cassie Steele of Degrassi: The Next Generation will lend her voice to the movie as the titular Raya with none other than Awkwafina also starring, voicing a dragon named Sisu, described as “a water dragon who has the ability to take human form as an old woman.”

As of this writing the next Disney movie scheduled to be released in theaters is the live-action reboot of Mulan on July 24. The film had previously been set for a March 27 release date and was among the first to be delayed indefinitely due to the spread of the coronavirus. Other major Disney releases that have also been delayed and are set to arrive later this year include Black Widow on November 6, the 20th Century-Ryan Reynolds action-comedy Free Guy on December 11, and the Jungle Cruise movie which was delayed an entire year. In fact the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe has been pushed back with the entire “Phase Four” slate shifting forward.