For you hardcore Marvel fans that had every release circled on your calendar in permanent marker, the worst possible news dropped today; with Disney having just pulled their upcoming content slate out of the blender, it seems like all of the Marvel Cinematic Universe‘s remaining Multiverse Saga films have had their release dates rearranged.
The only winner of this whole ordeal is, appropriately enough, Deadpool 3, with the Ryan Reynolds-led threequel cheekily moving up from its original date of Nov. 8, 2024 to May 3 of that same year. Elsewhere, however, Captain America: Brave New World has now been slated for July 26, 2024, Thunderbolts has been moved to Dec. 20, 2024, Blade has been pushed to Feb. 14, 2025, and Fantastic Four will now be making its theatrical bow on May 2, 2025.
Avengers: The Kang Dynasty and Avengers: Secret Wars, meanwhile, received the most massive shifts of all, with the former taking the latter’s original release date of May 1, 2026, while the Multiverse Saga’s answer to Endgame will now drop on May 7, 2027.
Per Deadline, the delay is largely due to the WGA writers’ strike, as the ongoing picketing and negotiations continue to affect in-production projects, many of which are listed above; it’s almost as though the storytellers responsible for telling the stories deserve to be compensated appropriately or something.
But the fuel of this particular fire doesn’t end at the writers’ strike; with Scarlett Johansson having attributed the pause on her top-secret MCU project to not only the writers’ strike, but the possibility of an incoming actors’ strike, it looks like scribes and players alike are on course to make Hollywood really feel the ramifications of their mistreatment of the real artists.
So if these meaty delays are what it’s going to take for the AMPTP (Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers) to pump the gas on approving better contracts for writers and actors, let the MCU freeze indefinitely; actors and writers have been largely responsible for winning the hearts of many an Marvel fan, so it’s time the fans took their losses on the chin and cheered the delays as the artist firepower that they are.