Sesame Street Movie Release Date Pushed Back to June 2021

Last month, a report noted that the upcoming Warner Bros. MGM Sesame Street movie starring Anne Hathaway was seeing a delay in the start of its production, shifting roughly nine months from its initial July 2019 date to kick off production in April 2020. At the time, the delay wasn’t reported to be impacting the film’s early 2021 release. Now, however, a new report from The Wrap indicates that that is no longer the case. Sesame Street is shifting its release from January 2021 to June 4, 2021.

As was previously reported, the reason behind the production timeline shift is apparently a conflict in Hathaway’s schedule. The actress is currently working on Robert Zemeckis’ The Witches and there may be additional projects and commitments on her schedule as well, making April 2020 the first opening to get started on Sesame Street.

Jonathan Krisel, director and co-creator of Portlandia, is set to helm the film which will be based on the characters in the long-running series created by Joan Ganz Cooney and Lloyd Morrissett. Shawn Levy is producing along with Michael Aguilar while Mike Rosolio and Chris Galletta have written draft scripts. Sesame Workshop, which owns the rights to the show, is also involved.

We currently don’t know much about the Sesame Street movie. A report from December indicated that Anne Hathaway had been offered a starring role in the film as a character allegedly named Sally, a callback to the girl who appeared in Sesame Street’s very first episode. That report also indicated that Hathaway was weighing her schedule situation as she had also been offered a role in Robert Zemeckis’ The Witches adaptation, with Variety confirming in January that Hathaway had signed on as the menacing Grand High Witch in that film.

This upcoming film will be the third Sesame Street film to hit the big screen, following 1985’s Sesame Street Presents: Follow That Bird and 1999’s The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland. The franchise is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year after the series premiered in 1969. The series is famous for its adorable puppets and educational lessons, with characters like Big Bird, Elmo, Snuffleupagus, Cookie Monster, Oscar The Grouch, Bert, Ernie, and more becoming beloved by children and parents everywhere over the years.

Are you excited for the Sesame Street Movie? Disappointed its release date has been pushed back? Let us know in the comments!