Disney pushes back release dates for Avatar, Avengers movies

Things are getting shuffled around behind the scenes at Disney, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The media giant has pushed back the release dates of several major movies, as well as added a few new ones so fans don’t get too upset. Let’s run it all down.

The big headline is that the third Avatar movie has been pushed back from December of 2024 to December of 2025. The second Avatar film, The Way of Water, came out late last year and has since become the third highest grossing film of all time, so surely Disney would prefer the next come out as soon as possible. But as producer Jon Landau said on Twitter while sharing the first image from the movie, quality takes time:

Disney has more Avatar sequels planned after that. Avatars 4 and 5 were supposed to come out in December 2026 and December 2028 respectively; Disney was going for a once-every-two-years thing. Now, the movies have been pushed back to 2029 and 2031. Those are pretty substantial delays. But again, do you want it done fast or do you want it done right?

Disney pushes back release dates for Avengers movies The Kang Dynasty and Secret Wars

Next up: Marvel. Disney was planning a pair of new Avengers movies to debut in 2025 and 2026: The Kang Dynasty and Secret Wars. Now, both films have been pushed back a year to 2026 and 2027.

The villain Kang is set to play a big role in each of these films. Does their delay have anything to do with actor Jonathan Majors getting caught up in an abuse scandal? Maybe yes, maybe no, maybe Kang.

It’s not all bad news on the Marvel front; Deadpool 3, a movie that has seen its share of delays over the years, has actually had its release date moved up from November 8, 2024 to May 3, 2024. So we’ll see what an R-rated superhero film made by Disney looks like sooner rather than later.

Disney sets release dates for a trio of new Star Wars movies

Finally, we head to the galaxy far, far away. Disney has added two new Star Wars movies to its schedule: one coming out in December 2025 and another on May 22, 2026. They also already had one slated for release on December 17, 2027. So that’s three years of Star Wars, bing, bang, boom.

We know a little about each of these movies. One of them is directed by Logan director James Mangold and is set during the days of the High Republic, decades before the prequel movies. Another is directed by Dave Filoni and will basically be The Mandalorian: The Movie. The third is directed by Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy and will continue to story of Rey Skywalker from the sequel trilogy.

We don’t know which movie goes to which date. It’s nice to get some movement on this, although we should caution that there have been a lot of false starts in the few years where Star Wars movies are concerned, so fans might not want to get their hopes up until they see something more solid.

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