Some thoughts:
Pushed back to 2025? that’s (around) 1.5 years from its initial release date (from now to the projected release). It can be legitimately asked now if they are ever going to release it. It’s a strong possibility. Not saying it will happen but now in the realm of possibility.
Along wit this as to why they might never release it? Cost. The initial pictures of the “stand ins for certain talent” are NOT actors geared for motion capture, this is what they would look like:
So add the initial cost of the movie to whatever they are doing now? CGI Dwarfs in a
Live Action movie? I’m not sure how it could be argued “this was their plan all along.” Huh?
About the only way I could see it working is if she was surrounded by the costumed actors in “real time” and dreams about the dwarfs? Turning the whole thing into a dream sequence? Don’t think that’s likely. Even so that wouldn’t account for the disparity of the the two photos.
So it boils down to two possibilities as it stands now: they really were going with the actors as seen in the photos and shifted course or they decided to go with CGI dwarfs late in the game; there is no third possibility based on what is known.
Actors strike. The strike provides convenient cover for the delay. It buys Disney time, but doesn’t solve all of the problems surrounding this movie. People can complain all they want or deny them all they want. They are there. I’ll leave it at that.
Next, releasing this news on a Friday? That is the classic Washington DC trick of doing so. Surprisingly that it’s still attempted in a digital media age: there is no place to “hide” bad news.
Finally, this movie is now certainly part of a trend of films by Disney facing real headwinds and decreasing returns on investment, if it wasn’t before. It can’t be simply explained away by Disney+, the pandemic or any other number of ways. A company’s #1 job is to make money, we’ll see if Disney realizes that.
In the end, I have no horse in this race it’s simply a very interesting saga unfolding in terms of the hows and whys of this movie.