Having seen — and enjoyed — almost every big-screen movie Pixar has produced, I was disappointed to hear that its newest project, “Soul,” will not make its debut in theaters next year. Instead, it will debut exclusively on Disney+ this Christmas.
It’s a real shame, because the movie was directed by Pete Docter, who showed so much creativity when he made “Inside Out,” “Up,” and “Monsters Inc.” The voice cast isn’t too shabby either: Jamie Foxx, Tina Fey, Questlove, Phylicia Rashad, Daveed Diggs, Angela Bassett, and British chat show host Graham Norton.
I understand the motivation, with most theaters effectively closed for the length of the pandemic, and no one interested in going to sit in the ones that are open. I don’t even mind the movie being released first for home viewing.
My problem is that I don’t subscribe to Disney+ and have no plans to. It’s too bad Disney/Pixar didn’t decide to make “Soul” available first via video-on-demand, as I would have happily coughed up ten or twenty bucks to see it. But by sticking the movie on its own, branded, subscribers-only streaming platform, they have left me (and lots of other people) out of the experience.
We’ll just have to wait and get a copy of the DVD release from our library in a couple of years.