The Marvel Cinematic Universe's (MCU) calendar has long been a subject of intense scrutiny, with even the most minor changes in release date or new project announcements setting tongues wagging throughout the fan community. The recent postponement of the Disney+ series Wonder Man from its expected December 2025 debut to January 2026 did more than shuffle a schedule; it broke a long-standing, four-year-long release pattern that had become a dependable fixture in the MCU's calendar strategy.
For the first time since the start of Phase 4, the final month of the year will pass without a new Marvel Studios film or series premiering, effectively removing the franchise's consistent year-end anchor. This quiet conclusion to 2025 is a notable deviation from a strategy that successfully leveraged the global holiday season's high viewership and box office potential.
How Marvel Broke One of Its Longstanding MCU Traditions
Since the beginning of the Multiverse Saga in 2021, the final month of the year has served as a guaranteed anchor for a high-profile, must-see piece of content, a strategic move by Marvel Studios to dominate the highly competitive holiday leisure period.
This December staple was entirely removed from the remaining 2025 slate. This leaves the final two months of the year completely vacant for new MCU content, following the theatrical run of Fantastic Four: First Steps and the Disney+ releases of Eyes of Wakanda and Marvel Zombies.
Below is the history of the MCU's holiday releases since 2021:
- 2021 (Phase 4): The streak began with the box-office phenomenon Spider-Man: No Way Home (December 17) and the conclusion of the Disney+ series Hawkeye (finale on December 22). This was a double-header that set an expectation for major year-end releases.
- 2022 (Phase 4): The holiday theme continued with The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special (November 25, close enough to the beginning of December to serve as the year-end anchor), which was a critical and fan favorite, delivering a self-contained, festive narrative.
- 2023 (Phase 5): The baton was passed to animation with What If...? Season 2, which premiered with a special multi-day event starting on December 22 and running through to the end of the year. This ensured a new Marvel offering was available for fans throughout the holiday week.
- 2024 (Phase 5): The trend was maintained by What If...? Season 3, which also adopted the daily-episode, holiday-week strategy and premiered on December 22. This cemented the month as a reliable closing window for the Multiverse Saga's projects.
This predictable year-end offering defined the conclusion of the annual MCU slate. The series slated to continue this tradition, Wonder Man, was instead formally delayed from its intended December 2025 premiere to January 27, 2026. This decision was confirmed by Marvel Studios' Head of TV, Brad Winderbaum, who stated the move was to avoid having the new series "swallowed up" by intense holiday season competition.
Thus, the removal of this final project from the 2025 schedule leaves the year ending not with a customary Marvel fanfare but with a surprising and significant gap; it is a clear sign that Marvel is prioritizing a clean launch in the traditionally slower month of January over maintaining a streak of predictable year-end releases.
Why December Releases Have Always Worked for Marvel
December releases have served Marvel exceptionally well. For the MCU, the year-end slot has become one of its most financially lucrative and strategically successful anchors in the entire release calendar. By aligning a major film or a high-profile streaming event with the global holiday season, Marvel and Disney leveraged peak consumer activity, capitalizing on school and work breaks and a universal appetite for escapism.
This strategy began in Phase 4 and immediately yielded a cinematic colossus with Spider-Man: No Way Home. The film’s mid-December release perfectly positioned it for maximum viewing during the holiday break, allowing it to sustain enormous daily grosses that few other periods can match. It ultimately became the 8th highest-grossing film of all time worldwide with a monumental $1.921 billion globally, cementing December as a period for guaranteed box-office victory.
The success was not limited to the big screen; the December slot was also a critical tool for Disney+ subscriber metrics. The goal was twofold: to prevent customer churn and to drive new sign-ups during the holiday week. The live-action series Hawkeye strategically wrapped its season on December 22, 2021, ensuring a high-profile finale coincided with the start of the holiday viewing period and keeping subscribers engaged after No Way Home hit theaters. In 2022, the well-received The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special served as an essential piece of premium, rewatchable holiday IP, premiering in late November to anchor the Christmas viewing season.
For 2023 and 2024, the strategy evolved to maximize daily engagement through the animated series. What If...? Seasons 2 and 3 utilized a novel, powerful tactic: releasing one episode daily starting on December 22. This turned the animated series into an eight-day mini-event, effectively forcing viewers to log in daily to keep up. This massive surge in daily logins is invaluable for demonstrating platform vitality and securing a high level of recurring viewership during the entire holiday period.
Will This MCU Holiday Staple Be Back?
While the removal of Wonder Man ensured that 2025 would conclude without the familiar December MCU event, the absence is clearly a temporary scheduling casualty, not a long-term strategic pivot away from the holiday corridor. Far from abandoning the December staple, Marvel Studios is, in fact, elevating it. The shift shows that the slot is seemingly reserved for the highest tier of the franchise's upcoming slate, proving the return of this annual tradition will be massive in the coming years.
The comeback begins in late 2026 with a colossal anchor: Avengers: Doomsday, scheduled for release on December 18, 2026. The film will feature Robert Downey Jr. as the primary antagonist; excitingly, he has already been confirmed to appear in several projects following Avengers: Doomsday. This scheduling move immediately reinstates the December launch as the domain of the MCU's most significant theatrical events.
By placing the fifth Avengers film in the mid-December window, Marvel is banking on the unparalleled global box office boost offered by the Christmas and New Year's week, a lesson learned from the historic run of Spider-Man: No Way Home in the same period. The decision to save a project of this magnitude for the holiday season demonstrates a deep-seated faith in the profitability and cultural saturation that only a year-end release can provide for their biggest IP.
This renewed commitment is solidified in 2027 with the arrival of the saga-ending epic, Avengers: Secret Wars, which is set for December 17, 2027. The back-to-back placement of the two climactic films of the Multiverse Saga in identical year-end windows confirms the new hierarchy for the December staple. The period might no longer just be for series finales or seasonal specials but designated as the prime launching pad for the franchise’s highest-stakes, most culturally impactful theatrical events.
Therefore, while 2025 is an aberration, the December staple is not only returning but was dramatically elevated, transforming from a reliable seasonal offering into the domain of the MCU's most anticipated and definitive cinematic conclusions.
Geraldo Amartey is a writer at The Direct. He joined the team in 2025, bringing with him four years of experience covering entertainment news, pop culture, and fan-favorite franchises for sites like YEN, Briefly and Tuko.
