This is definitely the idea. A National Day release wasn't going to happen, the last import to get one was The Foreigner in 2017 and that (unlike Mulan) was a genuine Chinese co-production. To make it totally obvious what's going on here, a domestically-produced animated film called Kung Fu Mulan announced a National Day release several weeks ago, when the Chinese date for Disney's version was still TBD.Lemmy Caution wrote: ↑Sat Sep 05, 2020 2:25 amI'm just speculating, but the release date of Sept 11 (besides any unfortunate symbolism that hopefully is accidental) sounds like one of those typical Chinese decisions which is designed to dampen the CH audience for a major US film, and then some Chinese blockbuster will likely be released just before National Day to scoop up the lion share of holiday ticket sales. I could be wrong, but that's exactly how things regularly work here in China. Give Mulan a nice enough window, but save the prime holiday-going audience for Chinese films.
My original thought had been that a September 4th release would've been best for the film to minimize piracy from Disney+, but I hadn't considered that puts it in direct competition with Tenet, which is the first "real" new release from Hollywood since theaters reopened, as opposed to something that was supposed to come out in the spring and got shelved in China because of the pandemic. Plus The Eight Hundred is still going strong (its third weekend in theaters and it still beat Tenet), so Mulan could benefit by letting it have more time to play itself out. With National Day never on the table, September 11th might be the best date it could've gotten.