Even with the madness of everything happening throughout 2020, Marvel Cinematic Universe fans were still hoping for some kind of new content on the big screen before this year came to its merciful end. Thankfully, the Disney+ era will still begin before the end of 2020 with WandaVision confirmed to release no later than December, but there is still a much anticipated new movie that fans are dying to see on the big screen: Scarlett Johansson's Black Widow.
The film was originally postponed to November 6 after the original schedule change, but that date has always been somewhat flexible. While it comes as another disappointment, news has just broken that confirms MCU fans worst fears...
NEWS
A new report from Variety confirmed that Marvel Studios has officially postponed the release of Black Widow and all of Phase 4. Scarlett Johansson's solo film will now release on May 7, 2021, and it pushed the official theatrical start of Phase 4 along with it.
Additionally, Marvel Studios' Eternals has been delayed from February 2021 to November 5, 2021, while Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings has been postponed two months from May 2021 to July 9, 2021.
WHAT THIS MEANS
Even though this date change was always a possibility, it still pushes the theatrical debut of Phase 4 further away than anybody could have ever expected. When May 7, 2021 finally comes around with the debut of Black Widow, it will have been nearly two full years in-between movie releases for the franchise with so much planned over the next few years.
Black Widow now takes over the former release date of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, with Shang-Chi moving just over two months later in July. Eternals is now pushed back a year from when it was originally supposed to debut, even with all production nearly complete as it prepped for a February 2021 release. This also confirms that WandaVision will now be the only MCU release of 2020 with the entire movie slate pushed back.
As disappointing as this surely is for both fans of these movies and the hundreds of people working on them, it seems abundantly clear that Marvel Studios has a vision for the way they want these movies to arrive. With the amount of work the team puts in to give these films the scale and excitement Marvel Studios has been known for the past twelve years, along with the amount of money spent, Kevin Feige and his crew undoubtedly want to make Phase 4 the grand-scale event it deserves to be in theaters.
Black Widow is now scheduled to release on May 7, 2021, closely followed by Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings and Eternals.
