“Black Widow” will no longer be released in 2020 with Marvel Studios pushing back several films until next year amid the coronavirus pandemic…
Despite hopes that movie theaters might get back on track before the end of the year, Marvel Studios has just struck a major blow with one of the last blockbusters planned for release being pushed back until 2021.
“Black Widow” — the solo feature film starring Scarlett Johansson, David Harbour, Florence Pugh and Rachel Weisz — has officially been pushed back from Nov. 6 to May 7, 2021. Originally, “Black Widow” was supposed to open in May 2020 but the release was delayed due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
While Marvel Studios hoped that theaters would be re-opened in time to still drop the movie this year, many cities are still under lockdown with other major markets only allowing a small percentage of attendees to actually buy tickets right now. It probably didn’t help matters much that Warner Bros. took a gamble by releasing the latest Christopher Nolan feature film “Tenet” into theaters and earning just over $36 million at the box office domestically (the film reportedly cost more than $200 million to make).
Most studios have already pushed back blockbuster films until 2021 but Marvel was obviously rolling the dice that movie theaters would be re-opened by November. That definitely isn’t happening and now “Black Widow” will be pushed back to May 2021 as a result.
In addition to “Black Widow” being pushed back, Marvel’s “Eternals” will also see its release date significantly changed as that movie shifts from Feb. 12, 2021 to Nov. 5, 2021. “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” will also shift from May 7, 2021 to July 9, 2021.
As of now two notable blockbuster movies are still slated for release later this year — “No Time to Die,” the latest James Bond film is expected to drop on Nov. 20 while “Wonder Woman 1984” is still scheduled for release on Dec. 25.
Given the current climate of the pandemic with no end in sight for theaters to re-open completely, it’s entirely possible more release date changes will be coming in the near future.
