Like Thanos, it was inevitable.
Variety reports Disney has pushed back a number of Marvel Studios projects as slowed development and the Writers Guild strike — and the AMPTP’s refusal to negotiate with the striking writers — continue to bottleneck everything.
The recently re-titled Captain America: Brave New World moves from May 3rd, 2024 to July 26th, 2024. Thunderbolts shifts from its original intended date to December 20th, 2024. The often-delayed Blade slides to February 14th, 2025, while Fantastic Four repositions for a May 2nd, 2025 release. The two Avengers film meant to cap off the current Multiverse Saga will have the most significant delays, though. Avengers: The Kang Dynasty moves from May 2nd, 2025, to May 1st, 2026. Avengers: Secret Wars, the saga’s grand conclusion, also shifts a whole year to May 7th, 2027.
Shifting release dates is nothing new as Disney has constantly postponed films since the COVID-19 pandemic began. It also remains to be seen how many of these release dates will hold. As it happens, Deadpool 3 and Brave New World are the only Marvel films in production. In fact, the former will be released earlier than intended with a new May 3rd, 2024 date. The other films are in various states of development with both Blade and Fantastic Four constantly rumored to be in the throws of wide-raging creative rethinking.
Other Disney plans include two Star Wars features in 2026 — a schedule we doubt will happen considering Lucasfilm’s difficulty in getting features off the ground in the last few years — a live action Moana for summer 2025, the Fede Alvarez-directed Alien next year, and an intermittent pause on the Avatar films which will push the fifth film in the series to a 2031 release!
For those of us who saw the original Phase 5 and 6 calendar at Comic-Con International: San Diego last summer, the slow down in Marvel production is probably a good thing. That release calendar was ambitious and the hectic schedule definitely had an impact on quality across Phase 4. Of course, nothing can go forward without a deal for the writers, so expect a few more delays before the strike concludes.
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