Marvel Just Revealed Major MCU Phase 5 and 6 Delays
There has been a disturbance in the MCU as a whole bunch of upcoming films are on the move, including Blade, Fantastic Four, and Avengers: Secret Wars.
The dust had finally started to settle from the blockbuster unveiling of Phases 5 and 6 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe at Comic-Con last July, and now the studio has upended the whole thing. A total of six movies on the Marvel slate are changing their release dates, throwing the flow of both phases into question and leaving several mysteries still unanswered.
The cascade of news began this morning when it was revealed by Deadline that pre-production on Blade had been shut down following the exit of director Bassam Tariq and suggestions that the script needed further work.
While it was initially reported that the film would resume production in January 2023 and was still aiming to meet its Nov. 3, 2023 release date, that’s been quickly superseded by the news that Blade is going to move all the way to Sept. 6. 2024 – tossing it to the end of Phase 5.
Unfortunately, that delay has trigged a domino effect, since that Sept. 6, 2024 date was claimed only a couple of weeks ago by Deadpool 3. That now moves to Nov. 8. 2024 – just a short two-month hop.
Except…that date was previously claimed by Marvel’s highly-anticipated reboot of Fantastic Four, which now shifts to Feb. 14. 2025 and effectively drags the start of Phase 6 with it. An untitled film already scheduled for that date has now been booted to Nov. 7, 2025.
Meanwhile, Avengers: Secret Wars jumps from that Nov. 7 slot all the way to May 1, 2026, while a previously unknown movie scheduled for that latter date has been removed from the schedule (no biggie, since we didn’t know it was there anyway).
For now, Avengers: The Kang Dynasty remains in its May 2, 2025 berth. Given that the two Avengers films are likely telling one huge two-part story, they’re now following the Infinity Wars/Endgame roadmap of coming out a year apart.
Other upcoming films untouched (so far) by this upheaval include the rest of the 2023 titles (Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, The Marvels), plus Captain America: New World Order (May 3, 2024) and Thunderbolts (July 25, 2024).
But this does leave Marvel without a fall 2023 release, and also does not account for the bulk of Phase 6, which is still largely an enigma. Also unknown at this point is whether any of the upcoming TV series, which include Loki season 2, Ironheart, Daredevil: Born Again, and Agatha: Coven of Chaos, will be affected, since the MCU is based around most of its properties interlocking to some extent.
On top of everything else, unconfirmed rumors are hinting that a new Spider-Man movie could be in the works for July 2024, which would add another massive title onto what some have suggested is an already maxed-out production slate for a stretched-thin Marvel CCO Kevin Feige and his team. The next Marvel release, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, arrives on Nov. 11, 2022.
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Don Kaye is an entertainment journalist by trade and geek by natural design. Born in New York City, currently ensconced in Los Angeles, his earliest childhood memory is…