Movie delays weren’t uncommon in the Before Times, i.e. before 2020, but this year, they’ve become significantly more frequent… for obvious reasons. In fact, a lot of movies have had their release dates changed more than once, and today, Disney has announced it’s once again shifting around the releases of some of its biggest upcoming fare, including Marvel movies like Black Widow and Eternals.
Starting off with those two, Black Widow was previously scheduled to come out on November 6, and Eternals would follow on February 12, 2021. Now, Black Widow has now been moved to May 7, 2021, while Eternals has been slotted for November 5, 2021. So interestingly enough, both these Marvel Cinematic Universe entries have been put back into the months they were originally intended for at the start of 2020, but a year late than anticipated.
However, just because Black Widow and Eternals are back to being May and November releases, respectively, doesn’t mean that the MCU slate will unfold the same way. Ever since Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings was officially announced at the 2019 San Diego Comic-Con, the plan was for it to come out after Eternals, and it was previously scheduled for May 7, 2021. Now that Black Widow has taken that spot, Shang-Chi has been moved to July 9, 2021, so we’ll end up seeing it before Eternals, despite the fact that Eternals has already finished principal photography and Shang-Chi is still shooting.
That does it for the MCU release date changes, so let’s look at other corners of the Disney film empire. Death on the Nile, the second movie to star Kenneth Branagh’s Hercule Poirot, will now be released on December 18 rather than October 23. One of Branagh’s costars in the sequel is Gal Gadot, who also has Wonder Woman 1984 coming out on December 25. So assuming one of those movies doesn’t blink, evidently Gadot will be competing against… herself.
Moviegoers will also have to wait even longer to see Steven Spielberg’s remake of West Side Story, as it’s been pushed back a full year, from December 18 to December 10, 2021. The Ben Affleck and Ana de Armas-led psychological thriller Deep Water has also been delayed from November 13 to August 13, 2021.
But wait, everyone, Disney didn’t just announce delays! There are also some movies moving up in the schedule. The Empty Man, based off the same-named graphic novel from Boom! Studios, is now being released on October 23 rather than December 4. As for The King’s Man, the third installment of the Kingsman series that explores the eponymous spy organization’s origins during World War I, it’s arriving on February 12, 2021 rather than February 26 of the same year.
One notable Disney movie that wasn’t mentioned in this announcement is Pixar’s Soul, which stars Jamie Foxx as a middle school music teacher whose soul becomes separate from his body and must find his way back to Earth before his physical form dies. Right now, Soul is slotted for November 20, but it was recently reported that Disney was considering releasing the movie straight to Disney+. Perhaps no mention of Soul moving dates strengthens those claims. There’s also no mention of the Ryan Reynolds-led video game comedy Free Guy, which is currently resting on December 11.
As a reminder, given the way things are nowadays, there’s no guarantee that any of these movies will permanently stick to those release dates. Should any of them shift around on the calendar again, we here at CinemaBlend will be sure to let you know.
