Coronavirus and its possible impact on upcoming MCU productions

[Frodo]

They could've had a 5-year gap between Infinity War and Endgame.

Yeah. We lucked out.

In general, alot of the geek franchises are in transition going into the 2020's including The MCU, Star Wars, Bond, Batman, and even the CW-verse post crisis.

They're all sort of entering new eras anyway , though any serious and long term delays really will mark the beginning of something new once the return.

 

[Detective Conan]

 

[mclay18]

I don't think Shang-Chi is going to make its February 2021 release date unless it doesn't have much VFX work.

 

[psylockolussus]

I don't think Shang-Chi is going to make its February 2021 release date unless it doesn't have much VFX work.

Well it already started filming late imo. It started filming like February or March of this year, already less than a year to its projected release date.

Also Ds2 still has no official director. They probably knew Shang Chi would be moved to May - before the coronavirus affected their production slate.

 

[mclay18]

Raimi is still attached for DS2, why would they do pre-production without a director?

 

[Dark Raven]

If Dr Strange somehow managed to get 9 films, would that ninth one be known as DS9?

 

[Albright]

Raimi is still attached for DS2, why would they do pre-production without a director?

there hasn’t been an official announcement- only rumors.
so right now, DS2 still hasn’t a director

 

[psylockolussus]

Raimi is still attached for DS2, why would they do pre-production without a director?

Again, its not even official if they got him to direct.

Even if coronavirus didnt happen and they already got a director, their start date for filming Ds2 is supposed to be June, less than a year than its projected 2021 release date. Now why would Marvel Studios start filming their movies less than a year than the film's target release date? Especially these action/cbm movies take longer time to finish especially with vfX.

 

[Chris B]

This is assuming a best case scenario in regards to the virus being contained, but my guess is that Black Widow winds up taking The Eternals' date in November, with that claiming Shang-Chi's spot in February.

Beyond that is when its gets more muddled. I would expect MCU Spider-Man 3 to keep its July '21 date as Marvel has no control over when that is released and Sony seems unlikely to move it back unless their hand is forced.

As far as the other 2021 MCU films go, I'm assuming that Shang-Chi takes the May slot despite being an untested property, but it does have the advantage of having done some filming already unlike Dr. Strange: MoM. In which case, I see Dr. Strange being pushed back to November assuming Sony doesn't budge with Spidey. In which case, Thor: L&T takes the February 2022 slot.

By that point, hopefully the pandemic is behind us. In which case, I think the schedule starts to get back on track with BP2 keeping its May 2022 date.

 

[Dark Raven]

If this were 2015 or 2014 and Fox had to have a Fantastic Four film in production by a certain date to avoid losing the rights and they were hit by Coronavirus, then they would surely lose the rights wouldn't they? While that is moot now, I'm wondering how they would've been affected.

 

[Detective Conan]

If this were 2015 or 2014 and Fox had to have a Fantastic Four film in production by a certain date to avoid losing the rights and they were hit by Coronavirus, then they would surely lose the rights wouldn't they? While that is moot now, I'm wondering how they would've been affected.

That’s a fascinating question, however, the answer to your question depends on how far into development Fox’s FF reboot would’ve been at the time before a hypothetical virus outbreak. By early 2014, the movie has already been green-lit and production has already started and by early 2015 the movie is more or less being finished and well pass the beginning stages of production. So they don’t stand a chance of losing the rights in the time frame you mentioned.

Now let’s change the timeframe to early 2012 and if Fox didn’t get all their ducks in a row enough to properly initiate production of an FF film in time thanks to the virus, my assumption is that they’d likely would’ve asked for an extension on the rights reversion deadline — similar to what they tried to do with the Daredevil rights when it looked like the weren’t going to get a Daredevil movie out on time. Would Marvel/Disney been sympathetic to Fox, and allowed them the deadline extension because of the unique circumstances? Who knows? Maybe. Maybe not.

However, it was rumored years ago that Marvel/Disney was willing to let Fox keep the rights to DD if Fox forfeited over Galactus to them. If there was ever any truth to that rumor, then it never came to pass - presumably because Galactus was seen as a much greater asset than the Daredevil rights(he’s one of the big cosmic Marvel villains after all), and Fox just let the rights to DD revert.

Your question would make for an interesting premise of a Marvel “What-If” episode.

Maybe Marvel will make it into a “What-if” segment one day (yeah... they never will, lol).

 

[Roose Bolton]

If this were 2015 or 2014 and Fox had to have a Fantastic Four film in production by a certain date to avoid losing the rights and they were hit by Coronavirus, then they would surely lose the rights wouldn't they? While that is moot now, I'm wondering how they would've been affected.

Better question, If this were 2007 and development of TIH stalled due to Coronavirus, would Universal keep the Hulk rights? Or would Marvel lose the chance to produce a Hulk film?

 

[Detective Conan]

Black Widow has been pushed to November

But it’s not the only MCU film with a new date. The rest of the Phase 4 film slate has been pushed back as well.

 

[Albright]

**** you, Corona! In a year with only two MCU movies...
Can we just skip our lives for 6 months?
After what was shown on SDC 2019 it was too good to be true

 

[Detective Conan]

**** you, Corona! In a year with only two MCU movies...
Can we just skip our lives for 6 months?

I think Spider-Man is likely to be pushed back to 2022. It just haven’t been announced since that’s Sony’s job. So 2022 will likely have three MCU movies as well.

 

[Albright]

Very unlikely with Captain Marvel now in July. Difficult now to get a spot in the Marvel schedule, because May is reserved for MCU, June is to soon and July is only open in 2023...

 

[psylockolussus]

I think Spider-Man is likely to be pushed back to 2022. It just haven’t been announced since that’s Sony’s job. So 2022 will likely have three MCU movies as well.

I'm looking at Mcu's slate and Spider-Man is a big ? for me.

Like I feel it would be lucky not to get moved especially Morbius/Venom 2 aren't even going to be released this year.

 

[Albright]

I bet somewhere in Holywood, Feige is trying to bite his ass now for not having a November or February release after Endgame...
The decision was to have a bigger cut after Phase 3 ended...now it doesn’t look like it was a good plan

 

[Darkprime]

Black Widow has been pushed to November

But it’s not the only MCU film with a new date. The rest of the Phase 4 film slate has been pushed back as well.

They forgot Black Panther 2 in May 2022.

 

[Zorro]

I thought only Black Widow would be delayed until august or september and Eternals keeping the date but nope! The whole Phase got shuffled around

 

[Spider-Fan]

Spider-Man can still make the date if they film around July. But even if it moves, I don't see it being a full year delay for Spider-Man. October was good to them with Venom, so maybe Spider-Man could go there.

 

[TheVileOne]

I think they made the right move here. Makes no sense to put any of the Marvel movies straight to streaming right now.

Marvel films you are pretty much guaranteed to make at least half a billion worldwide. Even the lesser films. It'd be idiotic to move them to streaming if you can avoid it.

Just for reference, Doctor Strange made $677 million worldwide. Ant-Man and the Wasp made $622 million worldwide. Both also did over $200 million in the US as well.

So those are just the smaller Marvel films at this point. It'd be a waste to dump those films to streaming when those are the films that are pretty much safe box office films right now.

 

[Schlosser85]

Spider-Man can still make the date if they film around July. But even if it moves, I don't see it being a full year delay for Spider-Man. October was good to them with Venom, so maybe Spider-Man could go there.

Tom Holland was supposed to be filming Uncharted right now, and then go straight into filming Spider-Man 3 after wrapping Uncharted. So would he be contractually obligated to film Uncharted first? How would that work?

 

[Yowza]

I think they made the right move here. Makes no sense to put any of the Marvel movies straight to streaming right now.

Marvel films you are pretty much guaranteed to make at least half a billion worldwide. Even the lesser films. It'd be idiotic to move them to streaming if you can avoid it.

Just for reference, Doctor Strange made $677 million worldwide. Ant-Man and the Wasp made $622 million worldwide. Both also did over $200 million in the US as well.

So those are just the smaller Marvel films at this point. It'd be a waste to dump those films to streaming when those are the films that are pretty much safe box office films right now.

I agree it would be absurd to put a theatrical release on Disney+ that has a chance of earning a fraction of what these films have been making recently.

The marketing and distribution costs are heavy and the money faucets have been shutoff for constant revenue streams (theme parks, ESPN, ect.) but Disney still has the contacts and the reach it's just a lot of the infrastructure behind the theatre industry very well could erode somewhat as this Covid-19 situation goes on.

Also, according to recent reports it's looking increasingly likely people will be slow to go back to movie theaters like they did before in the near future so the numbers I think are in question. It would be not smart though for Marvel Studio's to not wait to see how things play out though. The November release date gives them some time and they're probably going to not front load so many movies as a result of this whole situation as opposed to putting an MCU theatrical release on streaming just yet.

 

[TheVileOne]

Disney+ subs appear to be doing good right now anyway without these films. I saw a report that they tripled recently.

But you can monetize these movies on VOD or streaming rentals, but theya re less monetized on Disney Plus, where people can abuse that whole free trial thing.