Disney has just announced delays for its 2022 Marvel films, along with the upcoming fifth Indiana Jones movie, all of which have been pushed back to later in the year or moved to 2023.
The Marvel movie shifts are the usual chain reaction delay: to push back one movie means pushing back all of them, so there’s a domino effect in pushing everything back a bit:
- Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is moving from March 25th, 2022 to May 6th (when Thor: Love and Thunder was originally intended to be released).
- Thor: Love and Thunder, in turn, moves from May 6th to July 8th (when Black Panther: Wakanda Forever was originally scheduled).
- Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is moving from July 8th to November 11th (when Captain Marvel sequel The Marvels was planned for).
- The Marvels is moving from November 11th to February 17th, 2023, when Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania was originally scheduled.
- Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is moving to July 28th, 2023, taking the spot of an “Untitled Marvel” movie that Disney had yet to announce.
Other changes include Disney removing another unknown Marvel film set for release on October 6th, 2023 from its schedule entirely and a third Untitled Marvel movie getting bumped up a week from November 10th, 2023 to November 3rd. Given that Disney doesn’t announce Disney Plus release dates this far in advance, it’s hard to tell whether its 2022 tie-in streaming shows will also be delayed to keep pace with the shuffled film schedule, but it’s likely there will be some changes there, too.
Unchanged for now is the remainder of the 2021 Marvel schedule (which currently includes Eternals on November 5th, Spider-Man: No Way Home on December 17th, and the Disney Plus series Hawkeye on November 24th). Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3 is also keeping its May 5th, 2023 date, despite the shuffle of the rest of Marvel’s slate.
A far more substantial delay is also coming to the as-yet-untitled fifth Indiana Jones film, which is getting pushed back almost a year from July 29th, 2022 to June 30th, 2023, marking the latest delay for the James Mangold-directed sequel, which had originally been planned for a 2021 release. Harrison Ford is set to reprise his role as the titular character, alongside Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Mads Mikkelsen.
According to Deadline, the delays don’t stem from a concern over COVID-related box office numbers or delays but rather due to the simple explanation of needing more time to finish production on some of its films, combined with the interconnected Marvel release strategy and the usual need to avoid conflicts with other studio’s blockbusters.
