Marvel Studios Might Delay its Next Slate of Movies Starting With ‘Eternals’ [Exclusive]

The current pandemic is not fully over at least for the film industry and Hollywood as it has got Marvel to rethink its release strategy. We are getting the news that Marvel Studios might delay its upcoming slate of movies beginning with ‘Eternals,’ which is currently scheduled to release on November 5 in theaters. 

Shang-Chi, which is scheduled to release on September 3, is going ahead with its theatrical release and will not be simultaneously arriving on the Disney Plus premiere as confirmed by Disney CEO Bob Chapek.

Disney and Marvel will be closely watching Shang-chi's performance to take a more proper decision on the fate of every upcoming MCU movie opening in the theaters. The decision to postpone MCU films is way complicated than any other studio. Almost every upcoming film contains spoilers for the next, so if one is delayed, the others will follow suit. And Disney also needs to get Sony in its decision-making as the rights for Spiderman belong to Sony Pictures.

So, when we talk about the delay, we are not expecting a delay of 10-20 days, as Sony did with Venom 2, which got delayed from September 24 to October 15. We are expecting a delay of at least 3-4 months, which is a significant number and loss of millions of dollars. 

But now everything depends on the performance of “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings,” if it does well, it will open the box office for every upcoming movie, and if not, we will be seeing a delay. Any decision on delaying the films will be taken after analyzing the performance of Shang-Chi.

 

Since we have already got a lot of related news this week including Chapek confirming that Shang-Chi will be available on Disney Plus Premiere after 45 days of the theatrical window, I will further add four more exclusive pieces of info that you might not be aware of.

1. Marvel/Disney is not going to release any promotional content for Eternal before taking any decision regarding delay or not delay. Since a decision is not likely to come at least one week after the release of Shang-Chi, we will not see any trailer before September 10. (Edit- Eternals trailer was released on August 19 and Spiderman: No Way Home trailer was released on 23rd August.) 

2. As Bob Chapek has confirmed, Shang-Chi is indeed an experiment, and it will be a win-win situation for Disney in either of the cases due to the Scarlett Johansson lawsuit controversy. If it doesn't perform well, Disney would make the point, and it will prove them vindicated on releasing Black Widow on Disney+ and in theaters together. If it does well, it will make Disney confident to stick with the current schedule.

3. Whenever it releases, Eternals will be the next big experiment, which Disney cannot afford to fail. Unlike Shang-Chi, Disney has only got to lose, considering the big-budget and introduction of a new and big group of Superheros. Also, Disney is never going for Disney Plus's release strategy for its new releases in the near future.

4. Because no Avengers movie is scheduled for MCU Phase 4, Disney is treating a few of its upcoming films as mini-avengers and expects them to gross at least a billion dollars at the box office. So, ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’ and "Doctor Strange: Multiverse of Madness" will have proceeded with way more caution than any movie before them.

If the delay happens, Eternals may be pushed to February/March 2022, No Way Home to April 2022, and Multiverse of Madness to July 2022. Release dates for other movies - Thor 4, Black Panther 2, The Marvels, Ant-Man 3, and Loki Season 2 will also be pushed over accordingly.

Recently, ‘Shang-Chi’ star Simu Liu responded on Twitter against the statement of the Disney boss, saying, “we are not an experiment.” You can see the tweet below. No matter how much Liu and any other personality deny it, Shang-Chi is indeed an experiment and we explained above, why. Chapek knows very well how this can turn into a win-win situation when it comes to making a case against Scarlett Johansson’s lawsuit, both in the eyes of the court and the media.

 

We are not an experiment.

pic.twitter.com/IcyFzh0KIb

— Simu Liu (刘思慕) (@SimuLiu) August 14, 2021

We will be keeping an eye on all the related developments and will update you, as soon as we get them. Till then, keep visiting Midgard Times and follows us on Twitter.