It was perhaps inevitable when director Bassam Tariq departed Mahershala Ali’s Blade, but Marvel has announced that Avengers: Secret Wars, Deadpool 3 and Fantastic Four have been delayed, while the aforementioned reboot for the Daywalker has been put on hold.
It was reported yesterday by The Hollywood Reporter that Marvel Studios were putting the November start-date for Blade on hold for an undetermined amount of time and that its release date had been shunted, yet again, from November 3, 2023 to a September 6, 2024 bow.
With the Marvel Cinematic Universe becoming a huge jigsaw puzzle of superhero timelines and tv-spin-offs, this news has obviously had a ripple effect on other Phase 5 release dates that Disney had announced at this year’s San-Diego Comic Con.
As such Disney have said that Ryan Reynolds’ recently announced Deadpool 3 has been moved from its September 6, 2024, slot, to November 8, 2024, while the Matt Shakman directed Fantastic Four has had its release date stretched by four months, from November 8, 2024 to February 14, 2025, and finally the culmination of the Multiverse saga, Avengers: Secret Wars, will now premiere on May 1, 2026, rather than the originally set November 7, 2025. The only film to stand its ground in the great MCU reshuffle is Avengers: The Kang Dynasty, which remains on course for its original May 2nd, 2025 release date.
It’d be naïve to think that these films won’t move again, but the news is particularly depressing as far as Blade is concerned, having already been subject to delays and on the verge of production, you wonder where they’ll squeeze the eagerly anticipated film in a schedule that now includes Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (Nov 11), Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania (Feb 17, 2023), Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (May 5, 2023), The Marvels (July 28, 2023), Blade (Sep 6, 2024), Captain America: New World Order (May 3, 2024), Thunderbolts (Jul 26, 2024), Fantastic Four (Feb 14, 2025), Avengers: The Kang Dynasty (May 2, 2025), and Avengers: Secret Wars (May 1, 2026), along with a host of TV shows.
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