Disney has announced a major reshuffle of its upcoming release schedule – pushing back a number of its most-anticipated new movies.
Among them are the third, fourth and fifth instalments in the Avatar series, the most recent of which had been due for release in December 2024, but has now been delayed a full year, Variety first reported.
The latest Captain America film Brave New World is now hitting cinemas in July 2024, two months later than planned, while Marvel projects Thunderbolts, Blade and a reboot of the Fantastic Four franchise have also been postponed.
New Avengers outing The Kang Dynasty is also being pushed back a whole year, and will now hit cinemas in May 2026.
There is something of a silver lining for Star Wars fans, though.
While one untitled project set in a galaxy far, far away has been delayed from December 2025 to May 2026, another mysterious Star Wars film has also been added to the release schedule for December 2026.
This means two new movies set in the much-loved sci-fi universe will be out in the same calendar year.
According to Variety, the ongoing writers’ strike in America is the reason behind these numerous delays, after Disney’s pausing of Thunderbolts and Blade led to a knock-on effect within the MCU.
Meanwhile, Avatar producer Jon Landau said the delays would allow the visual effects in the next instalment to be even more impressive than its predecessors.
“Each Avatar film is an exciting but epic undertaking that takes time to bring to the quality level we as filmmakers strive for and audiences have come to expect,” Jon said on Tuesday afternoon.
“The team is hard at work and can’t wait to bring audiences back to Pandora in December 2025.”
Disney’s returning CEO Bob Iger announced earlier this year that the company’s animated division would be leaning into existing popular franchises, with new sequels to Frozen, Zootopia and Toy Story all in the works.
Coming up in Disney’s release schedule will be the Pixar outing Elemental later this month, and the animated musical Wish towards the end of 2023.