Do you have any plans for Dec. 19, 2031?
No? Is planning eight years ahead a bit much for you? Well, that’s understandable. But Disney (DIS) is hoping that on Dec. 19, 2031, you might be up for seeing “Avatar 5,” the final film in James Cameron’s Na'vi franchise. (It will arrive just 22 years after “Avatar” kicked off the whole thing in 2009.)
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Originally, “Avatar 4” was scheduled for Dec. 22, 2028, and it’s not the only film that Disney has announced a new release date for. For starters, “Avatar 3” will now be released on Dec. 19, 2025 and “Avatar 4” drops on Dec. 21, 2029.
A new “Star Wars” movie has been moved from Dec. 19, 2025, to May 22, 2026, and another “Star Wars” film is slated for Dec. 17, 2027. Disney hasn’t said who will star in the films, who’s directing them or what. It is known that Daisy Ridley is set to reprise her character “Rey” in an upcoming film, and that directors Jon Watts and Taika Waititi are working on upcoming Star Wars films, but it’s unclear if these are the ones given release dates.
(So many directors, such as Patty Jenkins and the team of David Benioff and D. B. Weiss, have started then exited Star Wars projects in the past several years that it’s very hard to keep track of what is still happening and what’s been scrapped. While the Disney+ Star Wars shows have been a hit, the movies have been in a state of disarray following the poor reception to 2019’s “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.”
Disney has also announced a number of scheduling changes for its upcoming Marvel films, and it’s not all bad news, as some films, like “Deadpool 3” is getting moved up from Nov. 8, 2024, to May 3, 2024.
The now retitled “Captain America: Brave New World” is shifting from May 3, 2024, to July 26, 2024, and “Thunderbolts” now moves to Dec. 20, 2024, “Blade” is getting pushed back to Feb. 14, 2025 and “Fantastic Four” will land on May 2, 2025.
It’s been a while since the Avengers brought the entire Marvel Universe together to save the day, and now we’ll have to wait even longer, as “Avengers: The Kang Dynasty” is getting delayed an entire year, from May 2, 2025, to May 1, 2026. Meanwhile, “Avengers: Secret Wars,” is jumping from May 1, 2026, to May 7, 2027. So…the two Avengers sequels switched, huh?
Oh, and a “Alien” movie, produced by Ridley Scott and directed by Fede Alvarez, drops on Aug. 16, 2024 and a live-action version of “Moana” bows on June 27, 2025.
In addition to Disney’s general indecisiveness on all things “Star Wars,” most of the changes are due to delays created by the ongoing WGA strike, as work stoppages on “Blade” and “Thunderbolts,” made it so these films were pushed back, which impacted the rest of the schedule.
And as Executive Producer Jon Landau pointed out, it takes a while to make these “Avatar” films.
