Warner Bros. Pictures, Disney, Sony and Paramount Pictures are pulling their movies from a release in Russia.
Image: Warner Bros. Pictures
The Batman, Morbius, Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Turning Red and more movies have been pulled from a theatrical release in Russia. Several movie distributors announced this decision in light of Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine, with Disney being the first to halt movie releases in the country.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, a spokesperson for WarnerMedia explained that The Batman’s release in Russia would be ‘paused’. The spokesperson said:
In light of the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine, WarnerMedia is pausing the release of its feature film The Batman in Russia. We will continue to monitor the situation as it evolves. We hope for a swift and peaceful resolution to this tragedy.
The Batman was set for a theatrical release in Russia this week, but those plans have been put on hold. The decision to halt the movie’s release was made as late as Monday this week, as quickly evolving events caused Warner Bros. Pictures to rethink their release plans. On Monday, Disney announced that it was pulling Pixar’s animated movie Turning Red from a theatrical release in Russia due to, “the unprovoked invasion of Ukraine and the tragic humanitarian crisis.”
This seems to have set off a domino effect among other movie distributors, with Sony announcing shortly after that it has pulled Morbius from its Russian theatrical release, which was originally set for March 24. A spokesperson from Sony Picture Entertainment said:
Given the ongoing military action in Ukraine and the resulting uncertainty and humanitarian crisis unfolding in that region, we will be pausing our planned theatrical releases in Russia, including the upcoming release of Morbius.
Paramount followed suit by pulling upcoming movies like Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and The Lost City from Russian theaters in March. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the decision to pull these movies from Russia might be - unsurprisingly - a financial one. The European Union had previously removed Russia from a global interbank messaging system called SWIFT. Due to this, major motion picture studios reportedly might not make any money back from distribution partners in Russia.
The studios have not announced any new dates for these movies, so it’s safe to assume that most major theatrical releases have been pulled from Russia indefinitely.