Here are the first movies (tentatively) set to release in theaters in July after the coronavirus lockdowns end. With the exceptions of drive-ins and one-off businesses, theater chains have been shut down since the ongoing pandemic took a turn for the worse in March, resulting in most of the world calling for their citizens to stay home as much as possible and practice social distancing whenever they go out. Other public events (like sports games and theme parks) also shut down because of the virus, but are now beginning to announce their reopening dates. All the while, exhibitors like AMC and Cinemark are taking steps to be fully up and running again within the next three weeks.
The health crisis is far from over and remains a highly fluid situation, so it's anyone's guess if theaters will be able to remain open once July gets underway or quickly be deemed too unsafe and forced to shutter their doors again (maybe even permanently in some cases). Because of this, the current marketing for August release Bill & Ted Face the Music is playing things safe by saying the film is coming out in "Summer 2020", in case distributor Orion Pictures decides to abandon the movie's theatrical release and send it straight to VOD on its previous date (like what happened with Trolls World Tour and Scoob! earlier this year).
Fellow August releases The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water, Wonder Woman 1984, and The New Mutants are in the same boat and will either move to a later date or head directly to VOD, depending on how things play out in the next six weeks. With that being said, here is the current lineup of wide releases planned for the month of July.
Unhinged (July 1)
Russell Crowe stars in this Derrick Borte-directed thriller as a road rage-fueled stranger who begins terrorizing Rachel (Caren Pistorius), a woman running late to work, after the pair cross paths at a traffic light one morning. The film looks and sounds like a garden-variety B-movie (one that brings Steven Spielberg's feature directorial debut, Duel, to mind with its premise) and probably wouldn't have popped up on most people's radar, under normal circumstances. However, Solstice Studios bumped it up to July 1 from its previous date in September in May, allowing Unhinged to test the waters as theaters reopen post-lockdown.
The Broken Hearts Gallery (July 10)
Sony Pictures hopes to become the first major studio to release a film wide in theaters this summer with The Broken Hearts Gallery, an original rom-com from first-time helmer Natalie Krinsky and starring Geraldine Viswanathan (Blockers) as Lucy, a 20-something art gallery assistance from NYC who creates the titular gallery, a " pop-up space for the items love has left behind", after her latest breakup. In an official statement, producer Selna Gomez has encouraged moviegoers to "listen to scientists’ recommendations and consider others’ health and safety" if they decide to go see the film on its (tentative) release date.
Tenet (July 17)
It might not be the first movie slated to open in July, but all eyes are on Christopher Nolan's Tenet ahead of its still-scheduled release that month. The director's latest original project (a globe-trotting espionage thriller with a sci-fi twist) is an outlier among 2020 tentpoles in the sense that it hasn't budged from its original summer date throughout the lockdowns, in the hope of being able to welcome audiences back after theaters reopen for business. Reportedly, however, Warner Bros. is planning to delay the movie behind closed doors, but is holding off on announcing the move until it has a new date firmly locked down. If it does, it could have a domino effect on the rest of 2020's slate, all the way through until December.
Mulan (July 24)
Disney was just a couple weeks away from releasing its live-action remake of its animated Mulan movie in theaters when the lockdowns began in March, prompting the studio to delay the film indefinitely before later rescheduling it to open in late July. Even when it did that back in April, many saw it as an overly optimistic move and doubts about its ability to hit its new date have only grown since then, to the point where a Wall Street analyst has argued it would actually be better for Disney to send Mulan to VOD and then Disney+, rather than risking a run in theaters. With about six weeks to go until then, the Mouse House is clearly holding off on making a final decision on the matter until the eleventh hour.
Greenland (July 31)
Rounding out the month of July (for the moment, anyway) is Greenland, a disaster thriller that reunites Gerard Butler with his Angel Has Fallen director Ric Roman Waugh. The film is about a family racing to seek shelter as a planet-killing comet makes it way to earth and marks the latest entry in a long line of similarly goofy-sounding genre movies for Butler (joining the likes of Geostorm). No doubt, distributor STXfilms is hoping to appeal to moviegoers who just want to get out of their house after months of being cooped up and enjoy some (presumably, mindless) city-wrecking spectacle for a couple of hours in their local, social distance-observing multiplex.