'My Spy' Going Straight To Amazon After Playing Chicken With The Coronavirus

While every other movie originally due out in the next two months has pushed or delayed its release date, there was title holding fast: My Spy. Even with all movie theaters across the globe shut down for the time being, the Dave Bautista comedy was still set for an April 17 release date – AKA next week. But now the inevitable has happened: My Spy is not opening on April 17. In fact, it's not opening in theaters at all. Instead, the movie is headed straight to Amazon.

And another one bites the dust. My Spy is the latest movie to lose its intended release date due to the coronavirus outbreak. Amazon has struck a deal with STX for the film, and will debut it on Amazon Prime Video sometime in the near future (no release date has been announced yet). The comedy actually already came out overseas – in Australia, to be precise.

But here in the states, it's had a rough time finding its way to the screen. It was originally set for an August 23, 2019 release, before being moved to July 2019. It then moved again to January 2020, then to March, and then finally landed on April 17. And then, of course, the coronavirus got in the way. So now the film is destined for streaming.

Different studios have been reacting in different ways to the theater closings. Disney recently decided to release their upcoming Artemis Fowl directly to Disney+, and Universal is releasing Trolls: World Tour on digital this Friday. Meanwhile, most other studios are holding fast and refusing to go straight to digital – they want to preserve the theatrical experience. But the thing is, we really don't know when the hell movie theaters are going to open again. Studios like Disney are hoping for a summer movie season, but I have my doubts things will be back to normal by then. If I had to guess, I'd say theaters might start opening again in September. But that's just a guess – for all we know, it could take longer.

My Spy is "the story of a hardened soldier who is adjusting to the subtleties of CIA operatives finds himself at the mercy of a precocious 9-year-old girl of a family that he and his tech support is surveilling in undercover. The CIA believes the family may lead to a dangerous arms dealer, who is the 9-year-old girl's uncle." In addition to Dave Bautista, the film features Chloe Coleman, Kristen Schaal, and Ken Jeong.