Well, the “Blade” dominos just keep on falling, huh? After it was announced that Bassam Tariq left the Marvel Studios film just weeks before filming was to begin, it was announced today that the production has been temporarily put on hold. And as we’ve seen in the past, when Marvel Studios films get put on hold, the entire schedule gets shifted. Thanks to “Blade,” that’s exactly what has happened now.
According to Disney, the official release date for “Blade” has moved from November 3, 2023, to September 6, 2024. That gives the film almost an entire year to figure out what the hell it is going to do. But those eagle-eyed Marvel fans will notice that September 6, 2024, was already the date for the just-announced “Deadpool 3.” Well, that film has also moved, with a new release date of November 8, 2024. That date was originally for “Fantastic 4,” which will now be released on February 14, 2025. An “Untitled Marvel” film then gets moved to November 7, 2025. That means “Avengers: Secret Wars” is kicked out of 2025 and will instead hit theaters on May 1, 2026.
Outside of the “Blade” news, which started this domino effect, the biggest shock is how far Marvel Studios has pushed “Avengers: Secret Wars.” Instead of following closely behind “Avengers: The Kang Dynasty,” the sixth ‘Avengers’ film will now release a full year after that. This echoes the release date distances between “Avengers: Infinity War” and “Avengers: Endgame,” which worked out well for those films. Does this mean Destin Daniel Cretton will direct both? Probably not, as it would be surprising to see anyone try to replicate the intricacies of filming back-to-back ‘Avengers’ films like The Russo Brothers did previously.
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It’ll also be interesting to see if they still classify “Blade” as a Phase 5 film, as it has now leap-frogged over “Thunderbolts,” which was supposed to end that Phase of the MCU.
Another thing to look at is the “Untitled Marvel” film. That is one of the projects that was left blank during the official unveiling of the Multiverse Saga Phases at San Deigo Comic-Con. While many have speculated what it might be, placing it after ‘Kang Dynasty,’ but before ‘Secret Wars’ is an interesting concept. Many speculated that ‘Kang Dynasty’ would leave the MCU in a massively changed situation, such as what ‘Infinity War’ did with the blip. How will the fallout of ‘Kang Dynasty’ affect whatever movie is sandwiched between ‘Avengers’ films? We’ll have to wait and see.
At least these changes are affecting films that aren’t going to be released until 2024, so the next year or so of films is unscathed. Here’s the full changes sent by Disney.
- UNTITLED DEADPOOL MOVIE (Disney), previously dated on 9/6/24, moves to 11/8/24
- FANTASTIC FOUR (Disney), previously dated on 11/8/24, moves to 2/14/25
- UNTITLED MARVEL (Disney), previously dated on 2/14/25, moves to 11/7/25
- AVENGERS: SECRET WARS (Disney), previously dated on 11/7/25, moves to 5/1/26
- UNTITLED MARVEL (Disney) dated on 5/1/26 is removed from schedule
Here are some other related Disney/Searchlight and 20th Century Studios release date updates.
- CHEVALIER (Searchlight) is now dated on 4/7/23
- A HAUNTING IN VENICE (20th) is the updated title of the previous UNTITLED 20TH CENTURY dated on 9/15/23
- KINGDOM OF THE PLANET OF THE APES (20th) is the updated title of the previous UNTITLED 20TH CENTURY dated on 5/24/24