Marvel Skipped 2020 - If You Hate Marvel, You Better Skip 2021
Marvel has all but skipped 2020 and if you hate Marvel movies, you better skip 2021. The Disney-owned comic book movie-making machine has just revealed that Black Widow will no longer release in 2020, having initially been planned for a May release and then a November date. Thanks to some other release changes, that means that 2021 will now see the release of four MCU movies and three Disney+ MCU films, and a further two releases in Sony's Spider-Verse. That is a lot of Marvel for your money.
Black Widow will now be released on May 7, 2021, and the knock-on effect means both Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings and Eternals have also move dates. The former lands on July 9, 2021, and the latter on November 5, 2021, as the pair swap release order. Other than WandaVision - whose trailer managed an incredible 50 million views in a matter of 24 hours - Marvel has no big MCU or Spider-Verse releases coming in 2020 at all. For the first time since 2009, the studio has nothing MCU related in cinemas and the decade-long run of two MCU movies per year is now over.
While it's bad news in the short-term, it does mean that Marvel movie fans will have to wait precious little time between the next ten Marvel comic book movies, with the potential for three Disney+ Marvel shows in 2021 and four more in 2022 as well. If the schedule stays as it is, there is a quick-fire release of movies that will truly test how much Marvel content audiences can take. If you're not a fan, it's going to be like a bombardment. And it's going to be hard to hide from it.
Even before Marvel kicked on their release schedule to more than two movies in a year, there was cynicism about how long the "comic book movie bubble" could endure without imploding on itself. That much proved to be empty doom-mongering, as even the less essential MCU movies took huge box office hauls. As some indication of the levels of success here, Ant-Man And The Wasp made $600m and was deemed only okay. But the cynicism still has not abated for those who simply can't sanction Marvel's brand of movie-making and the dizzying release schedule of 2021 and into 2022 - which also includes Sony's Morbius, Venom: Let There Be Carnage and the Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse sequel - will feed into that air of discontent.
For all of the MCU's success - which has in itself inspired the annexed Spider-Verse shared universe (which will be drawn closer to the MCU with links like Michael Keaton's Vulture appearing in Morbius) - it would be churlish to ignore the unease with which Marvel has become the powerhouse cinematic brand. And it's not just a matter of taking shots at a valuable asset on a pedestal either: Marvel's apparent stranglehold on ticket offices is seen as the death of opportunity for smaller and indie releases. Given the strain on the theatrical industry as a whole now, those voices of discontent will no doubt be amplified and it's not without reason. There isn't exactly an opportunity for Marvel to invest in grass-roots filmmaking and that will not win them any fans amongst those who already sneer at the increasing number of releases year on year.
The good news for Marvel fans, of course, is that the busy 2021 period kicking off with Morbius' release on March 9 will see Black Widow's return, sequels for Spider-Man and Venom, and new arrivals in Shang-Chi and the Eternals. On top of that, The Falcon And The Winter Soldier, Loki, and What If...? will come to Disney+ following WandaVision's debut in December. And while those looking to complain will point to Marvel's heavy-weight homogenizing of cinema, there is little repetition on the slate. Sure, there are three Spider-Man movies, but they cover the three spheres of the hero/villain divide with Venom occupying the anti-hero category. Black Widow turns back the clock, but Eternals and Shang-Chi offer completely new areas for the MCU. It may all be branches of one tree, but you cannot accuse the fruit of lacking variation.