After the Infinity Saga ended in Avengers: Endgame in 2019, the deck is effectively cleared for the MCU to be more awesome and highlight some fresh, young faces. While that happened to some extent in the form of pleasant surprises like Mrs. Marvel or Moon Knight, things have been pretty shaky for the franchise since Phase Four, and it doesn’t look like that’s going to change anytime soon.
Recently, Shang-Chi and the Ten Rings Star Simu Liu does an AMA on the new Meta platform Poisons. Naturally, Liu was asked about the status of his second solo movie (now known only as Shang-Chi 2) and he clearly stated that its release status is up in the air. It was originally intended to follow the Avengers movie, but since that “continues to be pushed due to circumstances beyond my control,” it leaves the status of its own movie. And since two Avengers: Kang Dynasty and Avengers: Secret Wars The series was pushed back to May 2026 and May 2027 last month, meaning there will be a five or six year gap between Shang’s titular films.
Shang-Chi isn’t the first MCU character to be in this predicament — Doctor Strange didn’t get a sequel to his 2016 film until last year, but that character has made occasional appearances in other media, and a key player in the Avengers: Infinity War. In time Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness around, Marvel has already done the job of positioning Benedict Cumberbatch’s wizard as a key player going forward. It’s currently unclear if Shang will get the same treatment given what we know is coming out soon, but this latest delay highlights just how chaotic things have been for the MCU in recent years. . Even if that chaos is due to real world situations that are out of control like the COVID-19 pandemic, its management of events is not good at all-2021 and 2022 release flood Can you imagine that the studio will be out of business next week. It is not easy to feel the future when there is a lot of fighting for oxygen and almost cannibalizing each other, not to mention other Disney media that are also released in the same airspace.
Disney’s seems to have learned its lesson from the last couple of years and it’s meant to deliver more breathing room for Phase Five material viz Heart of steel and echo But too many releases are the least of the studio’s problems this year: stories of VFX crunch and abuse allegations of its top-billed stars hovering over the big picture of the future. The recent, ongoing WGA Strike has further thrown things into disarray as have some projects Blade and Thunderstorms delayed forever while others like Deadpool 3 and Captain America: Brave New World still in production at the time of writing. But the threat of a actors strike coming on the horizon, these products may be discontinued in the next few days.
Marvel and Disney are ultimately just fine, unless another event sets them back in a year or two. But the series of events that have brought Phases Four and Five to its knees over the past two years shows how easily the studio can be tripped up, and why it can’t hurt to take things a step further. a chance rather than trying to sprint to the finish line.
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