Anna Daniels
Rewinding a bit, in mid-March 2020 came the news that production on The Falcon and the Winter Soldier in Prague had been halted due to government measures in the Czech Republic intended to stem the spread of the coronavirus. Then, as it became clear that movie theaters wouldn’t be opening back up any time soon, Disney was forced to reevaluate the upcoming release dates for some of its biggest films. Here’s the rub: the changes that the Mouse House announced on April 3 don’t just impact April and May movies — the effects on the MCU ripple all the way out to 2022.
In film, scheduling changes often have cascading consequences. The entire release schedule is designed to avoid major conflicts. If a studio releases two tentpoles on the same weekend, they run the risk of cannibalizing their own ticket sales. So when you punt one big film to a later date, it often means shifting the big movie that was originally scheduled for the second date — and so on, and so on.
According to Variety, Disney’s new release schedule includes some major changes to Marvel Phase 4 projects — including Black Widow, The Eternals, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and the fourth Thor movie, Thor: Love and Thunder. Other big-budget family flicks like Indiana Jones 5 and Jungle Cruise starring Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt have also been affected by the changes, though the shuffling of the MCU appears to be the most significant repercussion of the rescheduling — for fans and Disney both.
Written by: Looper
