Earlier this week Marvel Studios announced delays in release on virtually their entire slate of upcoming films, now Spider-Man: No Way Home may be affected.
Big Giant Robot: As the number of coronavirus cases kept increasing over the summer, we heard all sorts of rumblings about potential movie delays. This was the case for various titles, including Marvel’s MCU movies. Spider-Man: No Way Home is one of them, although Sony made the movie in partnership with Disney. Rumors said the studios were still assessing the situation, and release date delays were still on the table.Then the Shang-Chi premiere came, and the movie’s opening weekend was quite impressive for the pandemic. Sony decided to push up the Venom 2 release, which also did admirably during its opening weekend. And Disney announced that Eternals will stick with a theatrical-only release on November 5th. We even got the first No Way Home trailer that seemed to suggest that the film will hit theaters on December 17th, as expected. However, with two months to go until the release, there’s more talk about a potential Spider-Man 3 delay.
Even after the first No Way Home trailer hit, an insider claimed that Sony might postpone the film. That report said the next Spider-Man might take Doctor Strange 2’s place on March 25th, 2022. Since then, Disney delayed Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and all the 2022 MCU movies. But because it doesn’t control No Way Home, it’s not in a position to delay the film’s release. That’s something Sony would do. And it appears that Sony might still be considering the option.
Variety:Disney has delayed release plans for several upcoming films, includingDoctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madnessfrom March 25 to May 6, Thor: Love and Thunderfrom May 6 to July 8 andBlack Panther: Wakanda Foreverfrom July 8 to Nov. 11. With the Black Panther sequel jumping to November, The Marvels has been postponed to early 2023 and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania was bumped from Feb. 17 to July 28, 2023.Along with the deluge of Marvel delays, Disney has moved the fifth Indiana Jones installment back nearly a year. The still-untitled film, starring Harrison Ford as the fedora-wearing, swashbuckling archaeologist, will open on June 30, 2023 instead of July 29, 2022.
The major release date shuffle comes after Marvel’s Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings cemented its place as a pandemic-era box office hit and ahead of Eternals, the MCU entry that is scheduled for Nov. 5. The scheduling overhaul is related to production and not box office returns, according to sources at Disney. The next Black Panther entry, for one, is still filming in Atlanta. Since Marvel has become an interconnected and meticulously planned universe — which spans dozens of film and several new television series — any production delay causes a domino effect on the rest of the franchise.
It also has to do with IATSE’s new contract. So, the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, Moving Picture Technicians, Artists and Allied Crafts of the United States, Its Territories and Canada (IATSE) finally gets new contracts that restrict some of the ridiculous labor requirements that saw them working long hours and 6+ day weeks, and not a moment later, Disney has to postpone every Marvel movie on the slate. Wonder what that says about Disney’s working conditions.
