Marvel just postponed its most mysterious movie of MCU Phase 4

The novel coronavirus pandemic forced movie studios to release their new films on streaming services or to delay theatrical releases, as indoor gatherings were banned. Marvel was no exception, delaying its MCU films quite a few times. Black Widow was pushed to fall 2020 and then to spring 2021 before Marvel announced a final premiere date of July 9th in theaters and on Disney+. And it wasn’t just Black Widow, of course — Marvel had to postpone all its MCU Phase 4 films since the movies are interconnected and need to be experienced in a particular order, which often has nothing to do with the chronology of events.

While Marvel’s MCU schedule seemed to finally be set in stone a few months ago when Disney announced the new dates, there might always be some additional changes that might not necessarily have anything to do with the ongoing health crisis. And Marvel did just that, postponing its most mysterious MCU Phase 4 movie by about a year.

Disney announced its movie release schedule from 2021 through 2023 back in March, revealing that an untitled fifth Marvel film was scheduled to launch in 2022, on October 7th. We previously expected four MCU films per year through 2023, so the October 7th release was quite a surprise.

At the time, we didn’t know what to make of it. Disney revealed the titles of eight of the 13 MCU movie premiere dates that are scheduled through 2023. We already know the films set to launch this year and the four confirmed films for 2022. The four 2023 films were still listed as Untitled Marvel projects, but we had purported titles associated with all those dates. In other words, we already thought we knew 12 titles of the 13 movie dates Disney has given us.

A few weeks after that, Marvel released a promo video teasing the return of MCU films to theaters, and it also revealed premiere dates for Ant-Man 3 and Guardians 3. This left us with three movie slots for “Untitled Marvel” projects, including the one on October 7th, 2022. We already expect Fantastic Four and Deadpool 3 to be released in 2023 — here’s what Disney’s MCU scheduled looked like until a few days ago:

2021:

• July 9th: Black Widow
• September 3rd: Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
• November 5th: Eternals
• December 17th: Spider-Man: No Way Home

2022:

• March 25th: Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
• May 6th: Thor: Love and Thunder
• July 8th: Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
• October 7th: UNTITLED MARVEL
• November 11th: The Marvels

2023:

• February 17th: Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania
• May 5th: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
• July 28th: UNTITLED MARVEL
• November 3rd: UNTITLED MARVEL

Disney

has now delayed the October 7th, 2022, film for an entire year to October 6th, 2023. This also forced it to postpone the November 2023 release by one week, from November 3rd to November 10th. Here’s what Marvel’s 2022 and 2023 schedules look like now:

2022:

• March 25th: Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
• May 6th: Thor: Love and Thunder
• July 8th: Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
• November 11th: The Marvels

2023:

• February 17th: Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania
• May 5th: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
• July 28th: UNTITLED MARVEL
• October 6th: UNTITLED MARVEL
• November 10th: UNTITLED MARVEL

It’s unclear at this time what prompted the delay or which movie we’re even talking about. ComicBook speculates the film that Disney just delayed is Mahershala Ali’s Blade reboot. Marvel announced it back in July 2019 alongside the initial roster of Phase 4 announcements but never revealed a release date. An October launch would make sense for such a movie, as it’ll place Blade in theaters right in time for Halloween.