Amid a growing number of critics’ groups and publications—including The A.V. Club—announcing their own boycotts of Disney films in solidarity, The New York Times reports that Disney has lifted its ban on The L.A. Times. The studio says in a statement, “we’ve had productive discussions with the newly installed leadership at The Los Angeles Times regarding our specific concerns, and as a result, we’ve agreed to restore access to advance screenings for their film critics.”
News of the ban first became public on Friday, after a notice in the L.A. Times’ holiday movie preview indicated that Disney had refused to screen Thor: Ragnarok for the paper’s critics in apparent retaliation for a pair of investigative pieces on Disneyland’s business dealings published back in September. Had Disney continued to blacklist the paper, the backlash against the studio—which, as of this afternoon, had begun to spread from critics to filmmakers like A Wrinkle In Time director Ava DuVernay—would likely have continued to grow. Minutes before Disney released its statement, the Chicago Film Critics Association, of which several A.V. Club staffers are members, voted to join the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, the New York Film Critics Circle, the Boston Society Of Film Critics, and the National Society Of Film Critics in excluding Disney from year-end awards consideration.