Disney did a major reshuffle of its release dates and the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe wasn’t spared the mouse house’s plans. In a move that will dishearten MCU fans, as much as they have sort of wearily grown to accept such plays by now, a host of Marvel Studios movies have had their release dates shifted.
The biggest movies to suffer these changes are the Phase 6 movies. Fantastic Four has been delayed from Feb 14, 2025 to May 2, 2025. That slot was previously occupied by Avengers: The Kang Dynasty, which now shifts an entire year to May 1, 2026. And Avengers: Secret Wars, which originally held that slot, now moves by a year to May 7, 2027. This means fans would have waited 7 years to see a new Avengers film, since the last pair of films Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame released in 2018 and 2019 respectively.
There’s more. The recently retitled Captain America: Brave New World gets delayed by two months, from May 3, 2024 to July 26, 2024. This then pushes out Thunderbolts to a new Dec 20, 2024 release date, which in turn leads to Blade being delayed to Feb 14, 2025, the slot originally taken up by Fantastic Four. It’s ultimately a ripple effect and the fact that one movie’s delay results in a domino effect, pushing back the entire slate is telling of just how connected these movies are expected to be. The lone positive is Deadpool 3 which gets pulled up from Nov 8, 2024 to May 3, 2024, essentially being promoted to a summer movie.
With those changes, here’s a summary of the release dates as they stand.
- Deadpool 3 now has a release date of May 3, 2024
- Captain America: Brave New World now has a release date of July 26, 2024
- Thunderbolts now has a release date of Dec 20, 2024
- Blade now has a release date of Feb 14, 2025
- Fantastic Four now has a release date of May 2, 2025
- Avengers: The Kang Dynasty now has a release date of May 1, 2026
- Avengers: Secret Wars now has a release date of May 1, 2027
Undoubtedly, the delays have been worsened by the Writers Guild of America (WGA) strike. But more importantly, this may be Marvel Studios Chief Kevin Feige and Disney CEO Bob Iger acting on their intent and fan feedback of franchise fatigue and spacing out the movies a bit, so that each one gets a room to breathe, shine and leave a lasting impression in people’s minds, just like the earlier movies did. If these delays are even partly motivated by this rationale, I’d say that’s a terrific move that’s sure to win Disney and Marvel some cheers from fans, even if it means they get to see their epic finales a year later than expected. Let’s just hope we’re all alive to see it all.
