Disney is rearranging nearly its entire franchise release schedule, and that means that Marvel is rearranging a lot of moving pieces to accommodate the delicate jigsaw that is its increasingly sprawling cinematic universe. Alongside major Avatar and Star Wars scheduling announcements, Disney announced today that a plethora of Marvel films are moving around the release schedule. This includes a one-year delay of Avengers: The Kang Dynasty to May 1, 2026 and its follow-up, Avengers: Secret Wars, to May 7, 2027.
Alongside those major reschedulings comes the news that Deadpool 3 is actually getting moved forward, with the film now set to land on May 3, 2024 instead of November 8, 2024. Just why it gets to move forward when everything else is delayed isn’t clear, but that’s the good news. As for the bad, Captain America: Brave New World (It recently changed its name to be less controversial.) is jumping back three months to July 26, 2024. Marvel’s next attempt at an unknown superhero team franchise, Thunderbolts, has been delayed five months to December 20, 2024, and the troubled Blade jumped five months to February 14, 2025. Finally, we’ll have to wait a bit longer for the Fantastic Four to join the MCU as their film has moved back three months to May 2, 2025.
The reasons for these delays weren’t given, but the ongoing WGA writers’ strike is most likely behind it. Both Blade and Thunderbolts delayed their production thanks to the strike, and once one domino falls in the MCU, they all have to start shifting around. The delay of Avengers: The Kang Dynasty may also be to give Marvel some time to figure out what it’s going to do with Jonathan Majors’ Kang. The character is a key part to the next couple phases, (He already filmed Loki season 2.) but the actor is now embroiled in assault charges and an arrest.
