Disney announced that it was pulling Black Widow from its April release date last month and now the studio has revealed when the film will hit theaters: November 6th, taking over the date originally slated for The Eternals, which has been delayed until 2021.
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That shift is having a ripple effect in the rest of Marvel’s Phase 4 offerings. The Eternals is being delayed to February 12th, 2021, bumping everything back a slot: Shang-Chi will now premiere on May 7th, 2021, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is shifting to November 5th, 2021, Thor: Love And Thunder is shifting to February 18th, 2022. Deadline reports that Black Panther 2 will debut as planned for May 8th, 2022, and Captain Marvel 2 will come out on July 8th, 2022. (This move also confirms that Captain Marvel 2 is part of the “Phase 4” line-up of MCU movies, which was largely assumed but still a bit up in the air before now.)
The move shows off how much of an impact the ongoing pandemic is having on the film industry, and that its effects will linger for years to come. Disney has shifted around other films: Mulan, which was slated for release on March 27th, is now slated to hit theaters on July 24th, while its recently-released Pixar film Onward debuted on the company’s streaming service, Disney +, today.
Those films join others that have been moved out of the way of the pandemic, like No Time To Die (now debuting on November 25th), Wonder Woman 1984 (now debuting August 14th), Ghostbusters: Afterlife (now debuting March 5th, 2021), and others. Other films, like, The Invisible Man, The Hunt, and Harley Quinn: Bird of Prey, Bloodshot, Frozen 2, and the aforementioned Onward, have hit Video on Demand months ahead of schedule.
