Marvel’s Entire Slate Of Movies Is Being Delayed
Most upcoming Marvel movie release dates are pushed back due to the writers strike.
Proving that the pen is truly mightier than the sword—or in this case, the Hulk—the ongoing WGA writers’ strike has caused Marvel to push back the release dates on the majority of its upcoming films. We say majority because, weirdly, Deadpool 3 has been moved up from its original November 8, 2024 release date to May 3, 2024—a whopping six months early! Good news for fans of the Merc With a Mouth, bad news for fans of everything else.
That’s right, we said everything. According to Variety, Disney is experiencing production delays on not just the Marvel films but also two upcoming Star Wars projects, and the Avatar sequels James Cameron has been promising to release over the next decade or so. According to the new timeline, Avatar 5 is set to be released in 2031—22 years after the original 2009 megahit.
Of course, no franchise is suffering more from the strike than Marvel. One of the problems inherent in an inter-connected universe is that if one release date shifts, it causes a ripple effect that delays several movies. You can’t have superhero A show up in superhero B’s movie if superhero A’s own movie hasn’t come out yet.
For example, Captain America: Brave New World has been moved from May 3, 2024, to July 26, 2024, which caused Marvel to move Thunderbolts to a December 20, 2024 release date. Meanwhile, the already behind-schedule Blade has been delayed again until February 14, 2025, where it gets to hang out with Fantastic Four which was moved to May 2 of the same year.
All of that reshuffling has, of course, led to the next giant team-up extravaganza, Avengers: The Kang Dynasty, getting pushed back a whole year from Fantastic Four’s new opening date of May 2, 2025 to May 1, 2026.
This, in turn, means that Avengers: Secret Wars—conceivably the Endgame to Dynasty‘s Infinity War—can no longer come out on May 1, 2026, and has instead been forced to move to May 7, 2027. Confused yet? Imagine how the execs in charge of scheduling this clusterhulk of a cinematic universe feel.
Over in a galaxy far, far away, two untitled Star Wars films are now scheduled to come out in the same year, one slated for December of 2026, while another has been pushed from December 19, 2025, to May 22, 2026. Not enough Star Wars stuffed into a short-release window for you? A third Star Wars film has been announced for Dec. 17, 2027. Apparently, Disney has already forgotten about their recent promise to put more time between future Star Wars movies.
Unlike Marvel, the Lucasfilm side of Disney has been very fickle in recent years, announcing and then canceling projects like an auctioneer after a weeklong diet of nothing but Pixy Stix and Mountain Dew. In other words, expect those Star Wars dates to change regardless of whether the strike ends soon or not.
With the writer’s strike not looking like it’s ending anytime soon, all of Marvel’s upcoming projects could end up being delayed even further. This may end up being a blessing in disguise for the struggling MCU, however. With audiences and critics alike expressing a general feeling of Marvel fatigue lately, perhaps a break is just what the fans need to rekindle their love of the franchise.
