Captain America 4, Blade And More Marvel Movies Have Been Delayed Following Actors Strike Ending, And This Is A Smart Move

The 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike is over, but that doesn’t mean the release date shakeups are over. Although there are a variety of upcoming Marvel movies to look forward to on both the 2024 release schedule and beyond, you’ll now need to adjust your MCU calendars due to Captain America 4, Blade and more being delayed. However, given everything that’s been going in Hollywood lately, pushing these movies back is a smart move.

As The Marvels, the 33rd of the Marvel movies in order, begins its theatrical rollout, Disney has announced various release date changes concerning both the MCU and other corners of its media empire. Starting off, Deadpool 3 has been moved from May 3, 2024 to July 26, 2024, which had previously been reported as a possibility. As a result, Captain America 4, a.k.a. Captain America: Brave New World, will now come out on February 14, 2025, the slot that previously belong to Blade. So consequently, the Mahershala Ali-led reboot will instead be released on November 7, 2025. Meanwhile, Thunderbolts will arrive on July 25, 2025 instead of December 20, 2024.

So for those keeping track, not only are we not getting any MCU movies during the first half of 2024, that will be the first year since 2012 that the franchise is releasing only one movie, with that year delivering The Avengers. Then in 2025, we’ll have just Brave New World and Thunderbolts holding down the MCU film front. Furthermore, assuming that Phase 6 is still kicking off with Fantastic Four, that means Blade will now be the second movie in that phase rather than the final movie of Phase 5. 

Overall though, pushing these movies back is a good call. For one thing, rushing to finish a movie  for a specific release date is never a good idea. Even if Deadpool 3 is indeed going to resume filming before Thanksgiving, there’s no way the cast and crew could have put together an exceptional product by May. The same goes for trying to race through production on something like Thunderbolts or perhaps even reshoots on Captain America: Brave New World. It’s better to just push the movies back so that the creative talent involved can complete work at a more reasonable pace.

Also, going back to Deadpool 3 being the MCU’s only 2024 movie, it will be nice to have a breather when it comes to the MCU’s film output. Granted, in 2020, we didn’t get any MCU movies because of the pandemic, but otherwise, since 2012, this franchise has released two or movies a year, with 2021 delivering four! Pumping the brakes a bit might help make MCU movies feel more special rather than just something to check off on a to-do list. Besides, it’s not like that will be the only MCU content coming out in 2024 because in addition to the entirety of Echo releasing to Disney+ subscribers on January 10, it’s also likely that Agatha: Darkhold Diaries and Ironheart will come out later in the year.

Elsewhere on the Disney calendar, Mufasa: The Lion King, the prequel to 2019’s The Lion King remake, is moving from July 5, 2024 to December 20, 224, i.e. Thunderbolts’ old date. Untitled Disney movies that had been respectively set for July 25, 2025 and November 7, 2025 have also been removed from the schedule. Keep checking back with us for more updates on the Mouse House’s theatrical output and what the other studios have coming up.