State Of Play: March 2021

Hope everyone is doing as well as you can be, given current circumstances, and keeping yourselves occupied. 

There are a few reasons to be cautiously optimistic, that there's light at the end of the tunnel (and it's not just an Intercity 125 coming to knock seven bells out of us again!) 

This week saw some big film news, so I figured time to do an update!

I'll be honest, I wasn't massively surprised by this week's news that Black Widow was a) being moved again (from May 7 to July 9), and b) being made available via Disney+ Premier on the same day. 

The situation is still, to put it mildly, changeable. Cinemas in New York and Los Angeles are starting to reopen; UK-based cinema chain Cineworld (who also own Regal Cinemas in the US) have announced they will start to reopen Regal locations in early April. 

In the UK, cinemas in England and Scotland (at least) are working to the assumption that they will be able to reopen for business from May 17th, if COVID-19 is still being controlled at a reasonable level. That said, cinemas will still need to operate at reduced capacity (at least initially) and with social distancing protocols in place. In the numbers game, it's not going to be worth Marvel's time to put it out until the situation is a bit more stable. 

Unsurprisingly, this has had a knock-on effect to some of the other Marvel movies that are due to be released this year.

Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings will now be released (it is assumed theatrically only) on September 3; there's no news at present whether Eternals or Spider-Man: No Way Home (due in November and December respectively) will be affected. 

A couple of random bits of MCU news: in December, when Christian Bale's casting in Thor: Love And Thunder was announced (Bale will be playing Gorr The God Butcher), a new release date was also given: May 6, 2022. This will now put the Thor fourquel (Thorquel?) after Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness, which had its own date changed to March 25 2022.

But whilst Black Widow gets bumped, there's no such plans to change the date of Cruella (the live-action "prequel" to 101 Dalmatians, starring Emma Stone and Emma Thompson). Like Mulan and Raya And The Last Dragon, Cruella will be getting a cinema release (where possible) and will also be available on Disney+ Premier on the same day. This is Memorial Day weekend in the US, and a usually lucrative time for cinemas. 

As they did with Soul, Disney have also announced that Pixar's next movie Luca (a coming-of-age drama involving sea monsters in disguise, with the voices of Jacob Tremblay, Jack Dylan Glazer, and Maya Rudolph) will be available on Disney+ (at no additional charge) from June 18th. Where Disney+ is not available, they are looking at potential cinema releases in those territories. 

Other Disney properties shifted around include Ryan Reynolds' Free Guy (now August 13), The King's Man (December 22), Ben Affleck starrer Deep Water (January 14 2022), and star-studded Agatha Christie adaptation Death On The Nile (February 11 2022)

For fans of horror and thrillers, you'll get to see at least two anticipated flicks a little sooner than expected. Paramount have moved A Quiet Place Part II to the aforementioned Memorial Day weekend, whilst Lionsgate have shifted Spiral: From The Book Of Saw (the ninth- NINTH!- Saw film) forward a week to May 14. Chris Rock, Max Minghella, and Samuel L. Jackson will be playing a game very soon...

On the subject of ninth films in franchises, Universal have decided to move F9 back a month, so it will now premiere on June 25. This set up a clash between Vin Diesel and Tom Hardy, with Sony's Venom sequel due to drop on the same day. Realising they were sunk, Sony have moved Venom: Let There Be Carnage to September.

Universal weren't quite so kind to Minions: The Rise Of Gru, on the other hand; originally due to release on July 3 2020, it first got shunted to July 2 2021 and has now been shunted back another year, to July 1 2022.

Here are some of the current release dates at the moment, correct as of 26th March 2021. This only includes movies whose dates have changed since the last State of Play update (in January). 

2021

May 14     Spiral: From The Book Of Saw

May 28     Cruella (cinema and Disney+ Premier Access)

May 28     A Quiet Place Part II

June 18     Luca (Disney+ exclusive)

June 25     F9

July 9     Black Widow (cinema and Disney+ Premier Access)

July 9     The Forever Purge

August 13     Free Guy

September 3     Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings

September 17     Venom: Let There Be Carnage

December 22     The King's Man

2022

January 14     Deep Water

February 11     Death On The Nile

March 25     Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness

May 6     Thor: Love And Thunder

July 1     Minions: The Rise Of Gru

If/when (let's be honest, I think it'll be when) things change, we'll let you know. 

As Jerry Springer used to say: "Take care of yourselves and each other." 

State Of Play: January 2021

Hope you're all doing well and January has been as kind as it can be to yourselves. 

We're still in the grip of a deadly pandemic and the cinema schedules keep changing left, right, and centre, so thought it was worth looking at the lie of the land as we come to the close of the first month of a new year. 

To very few people's surprise, news broke late last week that No Time To Die was being shunted back again, this time to 8th October 2021 (from its revised April 2021 release). It's disappointing, but understandable. The world is still very much in flux, so I can appreciate the studios wanting to err to the side of caution. If it keeps this date, it will arrive a few days shy of six years after the last Bond movie, Spectre.

This decision has set off a bit of a domino effect, with a lot of other films now having been moved, including Edgar Wright's horror-thriller Last Night In Soho (now due October 22nd 2021), Ghostbusters: Afterlife (now 11th November), and A Quiet Place: Part II (17th September), with Jared Leto's Morbius, and Tom Holland's Uncharted shifted into 2022.  

Before Christmas, Warner Bros. announced that their full slate for 2021- 17 films in total, including The Matrix 4, Dune, and The Suicide Squad- would follow the example of Wonder Woman 1984 and be released on both HBO Max and in cinemas (where possible) on their respective release dates. Already, the Sopranos prequel The Many Saints Of Newark has had a date change, so others may follow.

Here are the current releases at the moment, correct as of 25th January 2021. Films below marked with an asterisk are Warner Bros. films and will be released on HBO Max on day of release as well as cinemas. 


2021

March 5     Coming 2 America (Amazon Prime)

March 5     Raya And The Last Dragon (Disney+)

March 26     Godzilla Vs. Kong *

May 7     Black Widow

May 28     F9

June 18     In The Heights *

July 2     Top Gun: Maverick

July 9     Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings

July 16     Cinderella

July 30     Jungle Cruise

August 13     BIOS

August 20     The King's Men

September 17     A Quiet Place: Part II

September 24     The Many Saints Of Newark *

October 1     Dune *

October 8     No Time To Die

October 15     The Last Duel

October 22     Last Night In Soho

November 5     Eternals

November 11     Ghostbusters: Afterlife

November 19     Mission: Impossible 7

December 3     Nightmare Alley

December 10     West Side Story

December 17     Sony/Marvel Spider-Man 3

December 22     The Matrix 4 *



2022

January 21     Morbius

February 11     Thor: Love And Thunder

February 11     Uncharted

March 4     The Batman

March 25     Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness

July 8     Black Panther 2

July 15     Fantastic Beasts 3

November 4     The Flash

November 11     Captain Marvel 2


At the moment, the first big blockbusters of 2021 will be Black Widow and F9 in May - but it's probably too early to say that those dates will definitely hold. 

This is something that I found out today, and which I found very telling: of the many films who advertised during last year's SuperBowl (a traditional spot for new releases to advertise to a massive audience and where the cost of a 30-second slot was around $5.6m), only four have actually been released: they are The Invisible Man, Sonic The Hedgehog, Mulan, and The Spongebob Movie: Sponge On The Run. 

We'll keep you updated if when things change again.