Disney shakes up schedule, delays Avatar 3, two Avengers movies, and more
Disney has announced changes to its theatrical release slate, including pushing back new installments in the Avatar and Avengers franchises back a year
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Diving into some late spring cleaning, Disney has made some notable changes to its upcoming theatrical slate, pushing back the next three Avatar films, delaying Avengers: Kang Dynasty and Avengers: Secret Wars, and slating two new Star Wars movies for 2026.
Avatar 3, which was previously scheduled for a December 2024 release, has been delayed a year to December 2025, per The Hollywood Reporter; Avatar 4 and Avatar 5 have also been bumped to December 2029 and December 2031, respectively. That means both movies have each officially been pushed back three years from their original premiere dates.
Also facing a delay are the next two installments in the Avengers franchise, central tentpoles for the MCU’s Phase Six. Avengers: Kang Dynasty which stars embattled actor Jonathan Majors, has been pushed back a year to May 1, 2026; the film’s planned follow-up, Avengers: Secret Wars, has also been delayed a year, now set to release May 7, 2027. Majors, who Marvel had been prepping to take on a pivotal role in the future of the MCU, is currently facing sexual assault charges. As far as the MCU goes, Captain America: Brave New World, the recently-acquired untitled Fantastic Four movie, Thunderbolts, and Blade are all also getting pushed—Blade and Thunderbolts both delayed production due to the ongoing Writer’s Guild of America strike.
Although the Star Wars franchise didn’t escape Disney’s mass rescheduling unscathed (a planned untitled December 2025 film has been pushed to May 22, 2026), two confirmed 2026 release dates still feel like somewhat of a fan win after a lengthy hiatus on big-screen Star Wars fare. A new Star Wars has not premiered with Lucasfilm since 2019's Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.
Another project that escaped the barrage of delays: Ryan Reynolds’ Deadpool 3, which has been bumped up to a May 3, 2024 premiere from an initial November 8, 2024 release date. Disney’s planned live-action Moana also now has an official release date of June 27, 2025, along with 20th Century Fox’s latest Alien installment starring Caleigh Spaeny.
17 Comments
I’m convinced Disney’s plan for Avatar is to wait long enough between movies to make people THINK they’ve missed the franchise. And since both films so far have been largely devoid of any staying power after viewing people will be suckered in to them once again.For the next DECADE.
“the recently-acquired untitled Fantastic Four movie”Que?
Maybe I missed something (and not like it makes things any better) but I think Jonathan Majors is facing regular assault charges, not sexual assualt
Being very cynical, in Hollywood terms I think that sexual asault would be a career-ender while physical assault may not be.
Being even more cynical, in Hollywood terms I think it might be the other way around.
All because of the writers’ strike? I can’t say for sure, since this article at no point mentioned why any of this is happening.
All of these dates seemed very ambitious from the get go. Considering Avatar 3 is already mostly shot, and I think Avatar 4 is currently shooting, the necessary work in post must be taking much longer than they thought it would. I doubt the WGA strike is the root cause there, though it might be indirectly related if they think other delays are going to jam up the VFX queues. The strike is probably affecting the MCU delays, but those were especially unrealistic even in a world where everything was just fine. And things are definitely not fine.
Not defending his actions, but this says that Jonathan Majors is “currently facing sexual assault charges”—which isn’t true at all. He’s facing charges of assault (i.e., hitting someone) and harassment (of the non-sexual variety), but none of the charges are sexual in nature.
Yeah, listen, the guy seems like a piece of shit but from a media/journalism perspective that is a wild misstatement. Like, “lawyers sending letters” level misstatement.
is currently facing assault chargesIs he? Because that link you provided makes no mention of these new charges.
Four years (I guess seven by the time the next one debuts) since a “Star Wars” movie is a “lengthy hiatus?” You do remember we had to wait 16 years for “Phantom Menace,” right? And then 12 for “The Force Awakens?” Not for nothing, but given those films’ legacies, maybe we should wait even longer.
Or maybe, just maybe, the delays are what made them suck and we should NOT wait.
The nigh-undisputed greatest Star Wars movie was made in under three years. Maybe, just maybe, the core problem here is a lack of storytelling vision and skill at the Lucasfilm leadership level?
Do you know what libel is? I’m guessing that you’ll find out if you don’t correct the libelous statement that you wrote. This website, this article, is not worth getting sued for writing defamatory, untrue statements and not immediately correcting the information and apologizing.
Nice – Deadpool 3 got a late spring/summer release! Disney must have high hopes for it.
Or, in other words, Deadpool’s script is written already and those other movies’ scripts aren’t, and there’s a writer’s strike on.
True, but Deadpool is also on-hold at the moment during the strike due to the amount of improvising that Ryan Reynolds does on-set, and the fact that he is credited as one of the writers (if he was just credited as an actor, he could improvise all he wants.) Apart from that through, they do have a complete working script and they’re probably full-steam ahead in production and anything else that doesn’t require RR to actually say anything that isn’t in the script. (I’m guessing if they really wanted to, they can go ahead and shoot as scripted, and re-do a lot of his lines with ADR once the strike is over.)