Following yesterday’s news that Gore Verbinski has become the third director to vacate the troubled X-Men spinoff movie Gambit, 20th Century Fox has announced a number of changes to its upcoming Marvel/X-Men slate.
First up is some good news for fans of the Merc with a Mouth, as Ryan Reynolds’ Wade Wilson will now return two weeks earlier, with Deadpool 2 set to open on May 18th 2018 as opposed to June 1st. Reynolds took to Twitter to confirm the new date with the following tweet:
May 18. #MaximumEffort pic.twitter.com/s7aCBXbaFF
— Ryan Reynolds (@VancityReynolds) January 11, 2018
Now, as the search continues for (yet) another director on Gambit 2, Fox has decided to push back the release of the project from its original February 14th 2019 date to June 7th 2019, with THR reporting that Fox execs believe that it is better suited to a summer release given that it has “a heavy comedic tone”.
And finally, Josh Boone’s The New Mutants – which was due to open in April – will now hit theaters on February 22nd, 2019 – almost ten months later than originally planned. According to THR, this is to “avoid an overlap with X-Men movies in certain overseas marketplace, where Mutants and Deadpool 2 would have been in theaters at the same time.” However, if The Wrap is to be believed, the delay for The New Mutants is because the movie “isn’t scary enough” given that it has been marketed as a horror.
Despite these moves, X-Men: Dark Phoenix is still slated to open on November 2nd of this year.
Originally published January 12, 2018. Updated January 13, 2018.
