The COVID-19 outbreak has thrown all of Hollywood for a loop, but Marvel Studios has arguably been hit more than most as Black Widow being delayed caused a knock-on effect that’s resulted in their entire Phase 4 schedule tumbling. At the beginning of April, the House of Ideas officially moved all of their slated films back, with each one taking the next one’s release date. However, it appears this new line-up is still subject to change, as Marvel has just announced yet another new due date for Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.
The Sorcerer Supreme’s sequel was originally set to land in cinemas in May 2021, as per the Phase 4 announcements at last summer’s Comic-Con. The post-lockdown updates then moved it to November 5th that year, filling the slot previously occupied by Thor: Love and Thunder. But as of now, Doctor Strange 2 will drop in theaters on March 25th, 2022. So, that pushes it back another four months on top of its initial delay. Overall, that’s 10 months later than it was supposed to arrive.
The reason for the re-reshuffle is because Sony has revealed that Spider-Man 3 will no longer make it onto screens by next summer and so is moving to November 5th, 2021. Obviously, it would be in neither Sony nor Marvel’s best interests to have these two MCU movies competing against each other, so the latter has elected to hold off on DS2 a bit longer. At the same time, Marvel has shifted Thor 4 forward by a week, from February 18th, 2022 to February 11th.
One good thing that will come out of this delay is that Sam Raimi has now got time to put his own stamp on the movie. Scott Derrickson departed the project at the beginning of the year, before the legendary Spider-Man trilogy director came aboard. Fans have got high hopes for what Raimi can do with a film that promises lots of multiversal mayhem and a certain horror flavor, so fingers crossed it’ll be worth the long, long wait.
TLDR: Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is now to set to hit theaters on March 25th, 2022.