'Fast and Furious 9' release date will be delayed a year because of the coronavirus pandemic

Universal

Vin Diesel in "F9."

• The ninth "Fast and Furious" movie has been pushed back from May of this year to April 2021 because of the coronavirus pandemic.
• "A Quiet Place Part II" was also delayed Thursday.
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The ninth "Fast and Furious" movie, "F9," has been delayed a year because of the spread of the novel coronavirus.

The movie was set to hit theaters May 22 but now has a new release date of April 2, 2021 - when the 10th "Fast and Furious" was already set to be released.

"F9" isn't the first major Hollywood movie to be delayed. The James Bond movie "No Time to Die" was moved from April to November, and Paramount pushed "A Quiet Place Part II" to a yet-to-be-announced date (it was supposed to hit theaters next week).

The coronavirus pandemic has killed more than 4,000 people worldwide and spread to more than 100 countries.

The past two "Fast and Furious" movies, 2015's "Furious 7" and 2017's "The Fate of the Furious," each earned over $1 billion worldwide. The global box office is essential for the movie, but with theaters closed in China and Italy during the coronavirus outbreak, the movie would have taken a huge hit.

China's 70,000 theaters have been closed since January and the Chinese box office was down by nearly $2 billion in the first two months of the year compared to the same time last year. Both "The Fate of the Furious" and "Furious 7" earned nearly $400 million in China, highlighting one big reason that Universal delayed the movie.

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