‘Deadpool 3’ Only Marvel Title of 2024, as ‘Captain America: Brave New World’ Moves to 2025 Amid Production Troubles
On Wednesday, Disney held its Q4 and fiscal year 2023 earnings call, where Bob Iger unveiled the financial results for the company from these past few months and year. As he looked at the future, he listed a bunch of upcoming theatrical films, including Marvel’s Deadpool 3, 20th Century’s Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, or Disney Studios’ Mufasa: The Lion King. It was slightly off-putting, of course, that he didn’t mention anything regarding Captain America: Brave New World or Thunderbolts. Well, there was a clear reason why.
The company announced on Thursday, following the end of the SAG-AFTRA strike, that both of those Marvel titles would be moving into 2025. Captain America: Brave New World, previously set for July 26, 2025, will now open on February 14, 2025, while Thunderbolts is moving from December 20, 2024, into July 25, 2025. That’s a whole year after its initially announced date. Finally, Blade moves, once again, into November 7, 2025 (two years after its original date). Fantastic Four keeps its May 2025 release date for now.
During the last episode of the Hot Mic, reporter Jeff Sneider explained the Cap‘s move by saying that apparently an early cut of the film got negative reactions from a test screening, and that Marvel is in panic mode (again!). They are set to remove three major sequences from the film, and will be going back to set for extensive reshoots between January and May. If they last that full window, they might come really close to reshooting the entire thing. After all, the film was shot in Atlanta between March 15 and June 30, 2023.
Keep in mind, though, that they now have a lot of scheduling conflicts in the wake of SAG ending their strike. Harrison Ford, who has a substantial role in the film, has to film the second season of Shrinking for Apple and of 1923 for Paramount Plus.
That leaves 2024 with just one Marvel theatrical title, which might actually be a good thing for them. It’s Deadpool 3, which is also suffering a delay because of the strike. Shawn Levy, Ryan Reynolds, Hugh Jackman, and the rest of the team were able to shoot half the movie before July 12, and Levy even said recently that he’s now edited that half. According to Sneider, this early, incomplete cut was internally screened at Disney on Thursday.
So now they’re going back into production in just a few days, so the crew has a bit of time to book their flights back to London. While many other films have to worry about Thanksgiving and the subsequent holiday break, Deadpool 3 is directed by a Canadian, stars a Canadian and an Australian, and is being shot in the UK. So they don’t really have to worry about Thanksgiving and can shoot for four weeks before they reconvene in January.
Despite that, meeting the May 3, 2024, release date was nearly impossible. For that reason, Disney has moved the film into Cap 4‘s previous date, July 26, 2024. Bottom line: only one MCU film coming in 2024, and it’s happening in July.
But Marvel has a lot of reasons to be confident about this one. For starters, social media has been buzzing about it even before, but especially since they announced the return of Hugh Jackman as Wolverine. With rumors and reports going around of Fox-era characters making a comeback for cameos in the multiversal adventure, and set pictures of Wolverine in his yellow costume being posted along with leaks of a destroyed 20th Century Fox giant logo, they have a massive hit in their hands.
Marvel likes that beginning-of-May spot, but recent data suggests that Deadpool 3 could do even better in July. I mean, there are two giant and very recent precedents of a massive global hit that opened in late July to huge numbers thanks to a viral marketing campaign. And if someone in this industry knows how to ride the social media wave, that’s Ryan Reynolds. Things are looking good for him right now.
Elsewhere at Disney, Mufasa: The Lion King is moving from July 5, 2024, into December 20, 2024. That seems like a smart move, both becuse it’d have opened in between Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes and Deadpool 3 (not that they target the same demographic, but it’s still business they’d be leaving on the table) and because they can now use the holiday spirit to convince families to go see a Disney live-action movie. Barry Jenkins is directing that one, so that’s a pretty big reason to get excited about it.
Also Disney-related, Inside Out 2 dropped its first teaser ahead of their June release date, and it’s as charming and cute as you thought it’d be.
Here is the current Disney schedule for 2024:
May 2024
5/24 — The Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (20th Century Studios)
June 2024
6/14 — Inside Out 2 (Pixar)
July 2024
7/26 — Deadpool 3 (Marvel Studios)
August 2024
8/16 — Untitled Alien movie from Fede Álvarez (20th Century Studios)
November 2024
11/8 — The Amateur (20th Century Studios)
December 2024
12/20 — Mufasa: The Lion King (Disney Studios)
February 2025
2/14 — Captain America: Brave New World (Marvel Studios)
March 2025
3/21 — Snow White (Walt Disney Studios)
May 2025
5/2 — Fantastic Four (Marvel Studios)
June 2025
6/13 — Elio (Pixar)
6/27 — Moana (Walt Disney Studios)
July 2025
7/25 — Thunderbolts (Marvel Studios)
November 2025
11/7 — Blade (Marvel Studios)
December 2025
12/19 — Avatar 3 (20th Century Studios)
Miguel Fernández is a Spanish student that has movies as his second passion in life. His favorite movie of all time is The Lord of the Rings, but he is also a huge Star Wars fan. However, fantasy movies are not his only cup of tea, as authors like Scorsese, Fincher, Kubrick or Hitchcock have been an obsession for him since he started to understand the language of filmmaking. He is that guy who will watch a black and white movie, just because it is in black and white.
