Black Widow is the latest film to be pushed back because of the coronavirus, could this delay cause a schedule shift for the rest of Marvel Studios’ Phase 4?
Last week, Disney confirmed that they would be delaying the release dates of Mulan and the forever cursed Fox-Marvel film, The New Mutants due to the novel coronavirus outbreak. This then led to speculation on whether Marvel Studios’ Black Widow would be next. Well, today it was finally announced that Black Widow will be delayed indefinitely and removed off its initial May release date.
Despite the film being set before Avengers: Infinity War, Black Widow is the start of Marvel Studios’ Phase 4, which will also include television shows. Given the current circumstances, movie theaters might not being opening up until the end of summer. This could mean that August or September would be the earliest rescheduled release date. However, another issue Marvel Studios faces at the moment is that production on The Falcon and The Winter Soldier, WandaVision, and Loki are currently on hold as well. This means that The Falcon and The Winter Solider and WandaVision might be missing their Disney Plus release dates too.
A solution Marvel Studios might be considering is moving shifting all the Phase 4 release dates back. So, we could see Black Widow move into Eternals‘ November 6th release date, Eternals to Shang-Chi‘s February 12th spot, and so on. On the television side, The Falcon and The Winter Solider might move to WandaVision‘s original December release window. Since The Falcon and The Winter Soldier and WandaVision have months of filming already under their belt, this could give them enough time to finish filming if they were to start again at the end of the summer. It’s also common for television shows to continue filming as a season starts anyways.
Nonetheless, changing Disney Plus release dates will be much easier then it will be for the films. Whatever happens, it’s clear Marvel Studios has some major decisions to make with their future release dates given their massive interconnected story. Nonetheless, it does seem like shifting the release dates to existing ones already claimed by Marvel Studios might be the easiest route they could take.
Do you think Black Widow‘s delay will shift Phase 4 back? Sound-off in the comments below!
Here is the official synopsis for Black Widow:
In Marvel Studios’ action-packed spy thriller “Black Widow,” Natasha Romanoff aka Black Widow confronts the darker parts of her ledger when a dangerous conspiracy with ties to her past arises. Pursued by a force that will stop at nothing to bring her down, Natasha must deal with her history as a spy and the broken relationships left in her wake long before she became an Avenger.
Directed by Cate Shortland from a script written by Eric Pearson based on a story by Jac Schaeffer and Ned Benson, Marvel Studios’ Black Widow stars Scarlett Johansson, David Harbour, Florence Pugh, O-T Fagbenle, Ray Winstone, Olivier Richters, and Rachel Weisz.
Black Widow is on hold indefinitely.
