Announcing a full slate of movies can be a lot of fun, but it’s also difficult to stick to that promise. Countless obstacles are ready to pop up, derailing even the best laid plans. So when Kevin Feige takes the stage at Hall H in San Diego or during D23 in Anaheim to reveal the dates and titles of Marvel’s upcoming movies, you just know that the slightest bump can send the apple cart toppling… and that’s basically what happened today.
Following the news that Marvel Studios was pushing pause on Blade as the studio searched for a new director, the studio’s parent company Walt Disney shuffled its release date decks and came up with new slots for several highly anticipated blockbusters. Everything from Deadpool 3 to The Fantastic Four has been pushed back. And now there’s a significant gap between Avengers: The Kang Dynasty in 2025, and Avengers: Secret Wars in 2026. Here are the major changes:
BLADE (Disney) previously dated on 11/3/23 moves to 9/6/24
UNTITLED DEADPOOL MOVIE (Disney) previously dated on 9/6/24 moves to 11/8/24
FANTASTIC FOUR (Disney) previously dated on 11/8/24 moves to 2/14/25
UNTITLED MARVEL (Disney) previously dated on 2/14/25 moves to 11/7/25
AVENGERS: SECRET WARS (Disney) previously dated on 11/7/25 moves to 5/1/26
UNTITLED MARVEL (Disney) dated on 5/1/26 is removed from schedule
So, instead of racing to slot another movie into the November 2023 slot that previously had been occupied by Blade, Marvel just decided to release one less movie that year – they already have Ant Man and the Wasp, Guardians of the Galaxy and The Marvels on the docket – and shift almost everything back. This creates a slight bump for Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman’s reunion in Deadpool 3. It creates a larger delay for Fantastic Four, a movie that just now confirmed its director but won’t reach theaters until February 2025. And it puts an entire year between Avengers: The Kang Dynasty and Avengers: Secret Wars.
That makes more sense. The previous schedule had Marvel trying to release two Avengers-level movies in one calendar year. And if the stories aren’t connected, it might be difficult to fully promote one while dealing with the other. So, what can go in the untitled slots? We have heard a lot about Armor Wars, now that it’s becoming a movie, (and not a TV show). Also, Shang-Chi and Spider-Man are supposed to receive sequels that haven’t been confirmed. So, stay tuned to CinemaBlend for the latest on all of these projects as they happen.
