In yet another blow to the franchise’s already shaky future, Disney has announced that they will once again be undertaking a delay of their upcoming Marvel releases, this time pushing their entire in-production line-up of Deadpool 3, Captain America: Brave New World, Blade, and Thunderbolts back from their originally slated premiere dates.
According to Disney’s updated schedule, where once he and Hugh Jackman’s version of Wolverine were set to make their MCU debut on May 3rd, 2024, their multiversal adventure will now hit the big screen roughly two three months later on July 26th, 2024
Notably, prior to this latest shake-up, this highly coveted summer release date was reserved for Captain America: Brave New World.
However, thanks to this scheduling update, the All-New, All Different Captain America will now make his play for audiences’ hearts on February 14th, 2025.
To this end, rather than drop two of their tent pole films on the same day, Marvel has also delayed their previously scheduled Valentine’s Day release, Blade.
Likewise, with his former spot now occupying a dangerously close date to Captain America: Brave New World, the Daywalker’s reintroduction to the silver screen has been pushed back to November 7th, 2025 – an admittedly bizarre move, as this date misses the thematically appropriate Halloween season by just a week.
Finally, though directly unrelated to the results of the above described triple-movie-switcheroo, the general schedule delay caused by these scheduling moves has led Marvel to push their Thunderbolts redemption story by six months from their original December 20th, 2024 sortie date to July 25th, 2025.
Interestingly, the House of Mouse’s rescheduling also saw them outright remove two unannounced films from their line-up, actions ostensibly taken in order to free up Thunderbolts and Blade‘s new respective release dates.
Further, Marvel was not the only Disney arm to announce such delays, as its core film production studio also announced that their The Lion King sequel-slash-prequel Mufasa will no longer premiere on July 5th, 2024, but rather December 20th, 2024.
And while not a Disney nor Marvel production proper, Sony’s third entry in their Venom franchise has also been pushed back from July 14th, 2024 to November 8th of that same year.
As of writing, neither Disney nor Marvel have provided any outright statement regarding the exact reasoning behind these delays.
However, as noted by multiple trade news outlets including Deadline and Variety, this superhero shuffling is likely the result of the studios being realistic about how much work is left to be done on their individual projects following the conclusion of the SAG-AFTRA strike.
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